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MELEAGROS 



THE NEW OALYARY 



TRAGEDIES 



LAUGHTON OSBORN 




/ 



NEW YORK 

THE AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY 

117, 119, 121 NASSAU Stukkt 

M UCCC I.XXI 






Entered according to Act of Confess, in the year 1871, by 

LAUGH TON OSBORN, 

In the Office of tlie Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



MELEAGROS 



^iDcccLxvn & vm 



CHARACTERS 

(Eneus, King of Cahjdon. 

Meleagros, son of (Eneus. 

Pro'thous, I Princes of the Couretes of Pleuron, and h'oihers 

Come'tes, ) of Althcea. 

Theseus, son of JEgeus^ King of Athenm. 

Nestor, Prince of Pylos. 

Ep'ochos, son of Lycurgus of Tegea. 

Peleus, S071 of ^acos, King of the Myrmidons in Tliesscdy. 

Alth^a, daughter of Thestius, and mother of Meleagros. 

Deianeira, Meleagros' sister. 

Cleopa'tra, daughter of Idas and Marpessa, and loife of 

Meleagros. 
Atalanta, daughter of Sdiwneiis of Arcadia. 

Mute Personages 
Peirithoos, son of Ixion, Prince of the Lapithw. 
Anc^us, Irother of Epochos. 
Telamon, Irother of PeUits, from Salamis. 
Amphiara'os, son of Oicles, from Argos. 
Euryt'ion, son of Actor of Phthia. 

Other Huntsmen. Attendants. 



Scene. In the palace of (Eneus and on the jilain lefore 
Calydon. 



MELEAGROS 



Act t u e First 

Scene. The Hall in the Palace of (Emus. 

Meleagros. Althaea. Cleopatra. Deianeira.' 

Mel. Care of my uncles ? Now, I tliink, O mother, 
They should by l)etter right take care of me. 
Should they not, Cleopatra ? 

Cle. In due coui-se, 
Being l>rotheis of thy mother and two for one, 
Perhaps they should. 

Dei. Not were they four to one, 
As they are more, all counted. In himself 
^ly brother, like Alcides, were a match 
In thews and valor for six times his count, 
"Were all the six Thesti'ada?. 

Alth, Thestius' sons 



MELEAGROS 



Are of my blood, remember, and to me 
"What IMelea'gros is to thee. His strength 
And courage, like thy spirit, are not deriv'd 
Alone from CEneus. Vaunting them, thou vaunt'st 
Thy mother's blood as well. 

Dei. But not her l^rothers. 
They are brave, O mother, and strong, but not as mine. 
I lack not daring, and my chariot wheels 
Have outstripp'd theirs ' ; but opposite my brother 
I am a woman. 

Mel. As before thy lover. 
This say the deepening roses of thy cheek. 
To name me, O sister, in one phrase with him 
Whom the world knows already, for his deeds, 
As Heracles ^ is lovingly to praise. 
Not wisely, as were I to match thy grace 
AVith Hera's, or my Cleopatra's charms 
With Aphrodite's bloom. Would he were here ! * 
The conqueror of the Erymanthiau boar 
Might make our mother less anxious, both for me 
And for our uncles. 

Alth. I fear not for thee. 
Thy life is in my coffer, and thy courage 
May drive thee whither it will, the monster's tusks 
Have power to wound alone. 

Mel. 'T is well for me 
I put no faitli in fables, or my fame 
For courage might even in Deianeira's heart, 
Wliich knows what courage is, and Cleopatra's, 



ACT I. I 

Wliich knows it I'lol, Ijc tarnish'd. Throw the brand 
Into the fire, O mother, and thou wilt see 
I shall not turn to ashes with it. 

Alth. O son. 
Think it not couraiijc to defy the gods. 
Nor wisdom to discredit the unseen. 
The Fates derided may have their revenge 
By the dread Furies. 

MeJ. I deride them not. 
Have not derided, either gods or Fates ; 
I think but as I thought, when first a man 
I heard thy story, that tliou wast dcceiv'd. 
Alth. This to thy mother ! Saw I not, heard not ? 

Thou wast then seven days old ; the brand was burning ; 

The vailed Moera enter' d, none knew whence. 

She gaz'd on thee a moment, or so seem'd ; 

For her thick pall hung low and hid her eyes. 

As her head bent, and with its shadows dark'd 

The features under. " His light of life," she said, 

And pointed with one finger to the brand, 

" Will last while that rests unconsum'd." ^ At once, 

I snatch'd it from the fire, extinguished, stor'd it. 

Thou wast a weakling then, but from that night 

Didst thrive and grow. 

Mel. As I had thriven and grown 
Were there not left one cinder of the brand. 
It was not difficult for the crone to see 
My slender chance of life, nor for tliy fear 
To chanjje her figure in the flickering light 



8 MELEAGROS 



To a vail'd Moeia. Wlio knows not these hags ? 
There is not a green spot in our mountain land 
Where, in lone hut or beast-deserted cave, 
Dwells not some beldam vers'd in magic arts, 
Or so accounted, who could say as much 
Over a puny babe, or look as dread 
In a half-shadow'd chamber. Easy way 
Have such found always to my father's halls 
Tlu-ough the bewilder'd and awe-stricken slaves, 
Wlio deem them demon-taught or Heaven-inspir'd, 
And listen to their mumbled cant as 't were 
Dodona's oracles. 

Alth. Am I of that herd ? 
Wilt thou deny me eyesight ? Saw I not 
The distaff in the fatal sister's hand ? 
It had touch' d the roof, held upright. 

Mel. Or the skies. 
I am glad she was industrious. 

Alth. Meleagros ! — 
Is this thy brother, Deiancira ? This 
Thy husband, Cleopatra ? ffineus' son 
Should di'ead celestial anger." 

Dei. And docs dread, 
Or reverence, O my mother. 'T is but doubt 
That his brave life should have its natural length 
Dependent on the extinction of a brand. 
Md. My disbelief, say ratlier. If the brand 

Hold in its uncharr'd core my spirit of life, 
I am immortal. Lay it o'er with pitch. 



ACT I. 

And in a brazen coflin bury it deep 

'Neath Taphiassus, or bound round with lead 

Sink it in broad Trichonis or the Gulf, 

Or give it, if thou wilt, O mother, in charge 

Of branching Acheloos, or the flood 

Wliich beais my wife's unhappy grandsire's name,' 

It is all one ; the stick will last forever. 

And I shall never die. 

Alth. This passes patience ! 
Wilt thou enrage me ? 

Md. 'WHiy shouldst thou l)e anger'd ? 
Is it in reason, in the possil)le bounds 
Of what may happen, that tlie fatal three. 
Whose sad or ternble mien tlie most high gods 
Scarcely themselves behold, should stoop to earth, 
Or one of them, to warn thee of decrees 
Whose motive is iuscrutal^le and whose aim 
Cannot Ije tuna'd aside ? What is the child 
Of Thestius, though her mortal sire were got 
By Arcs' self ( which is no creed of mine, ) 
That aught should leave Heaven's concave, or ascend 
From Hades' realm, to tread the flat of Earth 
For her advantage ? 

Alth. Wilt thou then deny, — ' 
Art thou so impious, as irreverent, grown, — 
That the great gods have held consort' with men ? 
Believe not, if thou wilt, their deathless blood 
Has twice commingled, as I joy to think. 
With bolh thy sire's and mine through Plouron's stem,* 



10 MELEAGROS 



Their roseate feet have trod tliis very hall. 
Witness mirth-gi-sdug Dionysus, made 
Thy father's guest, as I myself beheld. 
Mel. Believ'st thou that ? 

Alth. I say, these happy eyes 
Beheld the god, as I look on him now 
In memory's vision, with his sparkling orbs, 
Blue as the heaven yet radiant as the sun. 
Heart-piercing yet lieart- winning, and his cheeks 
Through Avhose immaculate skin the ruddy blood 
Bli^sh'd like the inside of the rose's leaf. 
Just where the vein'd red mingles with the Vv'hite 
At the bottom of the calyx ; liker that 
Than to the coarser hue wliich stains our own, 
Whose veins are not immortal. And as him 
In his youth's glory, at thy father's board, 
So saw I since, though darkling and close-vail' d, / 

The Moera in my chamber. 

Mel. Or so thought. 
Look not so vex'd, O mother. K not the crone, 
Age-bent and wither' d, muttering fancy'd spells, 
The vision of the Mcera was a dream 

Brought thee by Hermes. Thou hadst watch' d the brand 
With its faint blaze that rose and sank by turns, 
And mus'd upon my feeble flame of life 
Flickering like it, then slept to di-eam thereon. 
Thou shouldst have pray'd, on waking, to the Sun, 
Then let the extinguish' d brand again take fire 
And spar'd thy coffer. 



ACT I. 11 

Alth. And the gods ? 

Cle. O Meleagros ! — 

Alth. Check him not, my child. — 
What of the gods ? Doubt'st thou too, that I saw 
Step like a youthful monarch in this hall 
The son of Theban Semele ? saw and heard 
The voice that ra\nsh'd and the eyes that Ijurn'd, 
Where by thy fatlier's side the Zeus-begotten 
Bent o'er the board that changeless brow which shadow'd 
His tliick locks' wavj'^ gold and took the food 
That mortals savor, with tlie rose-tipt fingers 
That were not mortal, and ate as mortals wont ? 

Mel. I doubt not what thou saw'st nor what thou heard'st ; 
I doubt the immortal i^resence. Be not displeas'd. 
I speak with reverence, and I bid beware. 
The world may put false meaning on these tales, 

And at some future day 

Alth. I will no more ! 
Question thy sire, since now thy mother's love 
Begets not credence. Cleopatra, come. 

[Exit, followed hy Cle. 

Dei. What words be these thou hast spoken, O my brother ? 
Believ'st thou then no longer in the gods ? 
'T was not so alway. 

Mel. Nor is now. Believe ? 
'T is my delight to hope that they exist. 
Therefore it is I doubt their mingling here 
With the earth-molded mortals of this world, 
Which die and make corruption. Tliey whose pride 



12 MELEAGTIOS 



So humbles the divine conceive it not, 

Though they may thint they do, when by themselves 

They measure the gods' faculties and make 

Them slaves to passions groveling as their own. 

And for that tale ; thou dost not lend it faith, 

Tliou, Deianeira, with thy man's heart, thou ? 

Del What shall I say ? I know not what to think, 
Now with our mother, now inclin'd to thee. 

Mel. Fy, thou art but a woman after all, 

As thy face speaks thee. Let such stories live, 

The world will stretch their fable, or exiilam 

Its mystery haply, in a plainer age. 

Not to our mother's honor. ]\Ieu may say 

Thou gatt'st that fair skin and bright locks, those eyes, 

Piercing yet winning ( in our mother's phrase, ) 

From Dionysus. 

Bet. Thou thy valor, then. 
From Ares ? That were malice. Lo, where comes 
Our father, brave and kinglike, though no god. 

Enter CEnetjs. 

(En. Wliat hast thou said, O son, to wound the Queen ? 

Mel. Nothing, O father, should have given pain. 
I doubted of the brand, whereon my life 
Is made to have dependence; frightful thought, 
Were it not monstrous ! nor believ'd the gods 
Consorted with their creatures, and my sire 
Had vine-crown'd Dionysus here his guest 



ACT I. 13 

In his hand-ljuilded homo, and at Ins board. 
Is it not some delusion ? 

(J'Jn. Wiiat to say 
I know not, and unfavoi'd of the skies * 
Fear to awake Heaven's anger by distrust. 
The guest was young, heroical, yet learn' d, 
And on the vine dilated with a Avarmth 
Partook of rapture. Claim'd not he himself 
Aught of divinity, but thy mother saw 
More than a mortal's fire iu the eyes 
Which glow'd, with a strange light, though soft at times 
As Cleopatra's, while his voice was sweet 
As shcplicrd's breathing in his oaten pipe 
At even-tide. 

Mel. It should have had a sound 
Loud as the sea-shell, or the trumpet's blast 
In battle. Tliat could be no god. 

Giln. There rest. 
Thou knowest thy mother's mood. Provoke her not. 
Her love for thee is passion ; but like warmth 
Colors her fancies. Not to give her way 
Were to be ingrate, for to her thou owest, 
Not me, thy mettled temper. For the gods, 
Doubt not, dispute not. Let the coming chase 
Remind thee of its cause. 

Mel. Why should the boar 
Be sent of Artemis ? The gods, I deem, 
Are above human passion, nor resent 
Ncfjlect as mortals use. Wliv band we else 



14 MELEAGROS 



Against the monster ? Not ten tliousand men, 
Were they all of our inland,'" and led on 
By twice a hundred heroes of such strength 
And fortune as his who slew its Crommyan dam," 
Would slay or capture it, if its force and fury 
Be Heaven-directed. Thou wilt see, O sire, 
The bow of Atalanta will suffice. 
(En. I trust more in thy javelin, O my son. 

But be thou lieedf ul. Are all things made prompt 
For our guests' honor ? Sucli were ne'er assembled 
Since sail'd the Argo for her precious freight; 
And these be of her heroes, like thyself, 
Tliough thou wast then scarce man. 

Mel. All is well done ; 
And the fair huntress forms the special charge 
Of De'ianeira. 

Dei. And tliy own. Thou seem'st, 
O brother, to hold the Arcadian maid more worth 
Thau all the rest. 

Mel. More to be tended, say. 
And more to be admii-'d, being what she is, 
A woman and beautiful, yet with the soul 
Of Heracles or Theseus. Thus thou seest 
She is among them. 

Dei. So were I, nor last 
To lead the attack, wouldst thou and would our sire 
Yield to my urgence. 

QiJn. Hast thou leam'd to use 
The bow of Artemis by being betrotli'd 



ACT I. 15 

To dread Alcides ? Grudge not Sclioeneus' daughter '* 
Her dangerous honors, but enjoy thy own. 
Come, Meleagros, let us to the gate 
To meet our great guests. 

Dei. "Would I were a man 
To make one with you ! 

Mel. Thou liast nobler joy, 
In being the chosen of more than twice a man. 

He follows (Eneiis toward tlie entrance, 
loohing hacJc on Demneira. 

The Droj) falls. 



16 MELEAGROS 



Act the Second 

Scene. As lyefore. 

CEneus. — Mei.eagros ; Theseus ; Atalanta ; Protiioxis ; 
CoMETES ; Anc^us ; Epochos ; Peleus ; Peiritiioos ; 
Telamon ; Amphiaraos : and others assemlled for the 
hunt. 

Thcs. Is my voice ask'd ? This then my plan. Divide 
Lito two parts our band, each with its head : 
These mto two again, if need require. 
The monster, driven tlius between us, comes 
Perforce to bay. In tlie great hero's room, 
Ye liave lionor'd me unworthy with command. 
Have I the riglit, assuming then to guide 
One portion, I would name King ffineus' son 
To lead the others. 

Froth. He is all too young. 

(En. Not to have had experience. 

Mel. Which was gain'd 
Where Prothous ventured not, albeit I see 
Others are here who there were my compeers, 
Under lason,'' — foremost of them all 
He who is kin in valor as in blood 
To Z('us-1)orn Heracles, iEgeus' royal son.'* 



ACT II. 17 

Atal. Tlic will of Tlicsciis should alono prevail, 
Were it a meaner choice ; and if unknown 
For conduct and for valor to all else, 
Yet in the judgment of Athene's king 
To be approved, should be itself a title 
Unquestion'd to command. Wliat then, when he, 
So chosen, so approv'd, hath in himself 
Claims to precedence second but to his 
The approver's ? Further, so endow'd, and son 
Of royal ffineus for wliose sake Ave are met, 
Were Theseus now, as Heracles, away, 
None should command l»ut Meleagros sole. 

Pi'otJi. It is a woman's word. A woman's right 
To si)eak at all, where men of men's affairs 
Hold covuisel, might ])e question'd ; but what claim 
Has Schoeneus' daughter to consort with us 
Who are not women, but the sons of men ? 

Atal. I am indeed a woman in form ; my sire 
Had for my sex the same disdain as thou. '* 
With what cause knows Arcadia, ancient nurse 
Of valiant men, where none who boasts a beard 
Would venture to deny the smooth-cheek'd girl 
A claim to heart-strength equal to Jiis own. 
Take thou my ))ow. Thou mayest l)cnd it well: 
But canst thou drive the arrow to the mark 
So straight as I I Thou art more strong of limb : 
But is thy foot so fleet ? Against tlie boar 
If one of thy Couretes shall advance, 
Or thou, so close as I, or if thy spear 



18 MELEAGROS 



Go deeper than my shaft's head in his side, 
Break thou my bow, and whip me with its string, 
And put a distafE in my nerveless hand, 
As braggart and the woman wliich thy spleen 
Dares make me only. 

CEn. 'T is, though proudly said, 
Said justly. All are welcome here who come 
With courage for the task. And who brings more 
Than Schceneus' offspring ? who, save Theseus sole, 
Is fitter by exjDerience for this chase 
Than the Parrhasian huntress ? 

Thcs. Fitter none. 
The beast of Crommyon, was it even the dam 
Of Calydon's terror, miglit of fortune give 
One eminent instance, but no constant proof 
Of skill for this emi^rise as doth her life. 
Which from its cradleless laabehood has till now 
Been in consort' or conflict with wild beasts ; 
Nor sounds the ivory quiver on her shoulder '* 
Less fatal, when she walks the forest glade, 
Than that of Artemis. This, for her skill 
In fight with savage creatures. Ask we then 
For proof of courage such as fits a man 
In strife with men, we need but call to mind 
Hylseos, Rhcecos, Centaurs, whom she slew 
To vindicate her virtue. 'T was a deed 
Not Prothous, none of us, could well surpass ; 
And its bare mention fires the youthful blood 
Of Meleagros, and the scarce more old 



ACT II. 19 

His kin, Coinotos, from whose emulous eyes 

Look out more admiration aiul respect 

Than wakes mere beauty. 

Com. They are virtue's clue 

As well as beauty's. And if worth of soul 

Bears in itself a claim to men's regard, 

How much more, when the charms which rarely are 

Cocquals wath it, and not oft comatcs. 

Are like itself exalted. Prothous fails 

To make discrimination in the sex. 

Mine eyes are bias'd less ; and such my gage 

Of Atalanta's courage and her claim 

Among us to command, tliat, if none else, 

I, I will follow where she leads, assur'd 

'T will be to the thick of danger and success. 
Proth. Thus passion and the light of Ijeauty's eyes 

Blind masculine judgment and make i^earded men 

Overlook their place and sex-right. I will not, 

Not merely follow where a woman leads. 

But will not move at all in such emprise 

Where she must be my compeer. 

Mel Wilt thou not ? 

Now by my father's head, thou shalt ! 

ProtJi. IshaU? 
3fel. Ay, thou shalt go where Atalanta goes. 
And be it given her to lead, then thou 

Shalt follow with the rest. 

Proth. And this from thee ? 

Thou braggart lioy, who scarce hast won the right 



20 MELEAGROS 



To be tlij^self with men 

(En. Sto23, Thcstius' son. 
And thou, O my best-born, wilt thou then soil 
Thy scarce-leav'd laurels with the dust of shame ? 
Put back your swords, and know, that in these haUs 
To even think such outrage is to invade 
The stranger's rights therein and to insult 
Royal ^gides, all who to our aid 
Came at our call, and )nost the maid herself, 
The unweetiug cause of strife. 

Nest. For her sake then, 
To whom, though woman, none will here impute 
Tliat this strife was engendred, let it die, 
And be our contest only who shall dare 
First wound the monster which defies us all. 
Thes. And may thy spear, O son of Neleus, jirove 
As ready as thy words, which fly too swift. 
Some long years hence, when frost is on thy beard. 
And care and thought have channel'd that smooth brow, 
Thou mayst have tongue. Now, give thy elders si)ace. 
Valiant GEnides, and thou. Prince, his kin. 
Why in unnatural bickering waste that fire 
Which hath legitimate and useful ways. 
So many, and one immediate, to exj^end 
Its dangerous power ? Unto none of us, 
Who are all here guests save one, belongs the right 
To question who is of us. If her sex 
Who doth, I deem, great honor to our band. 
Nor is its least adjuvant, umbrage gives 



ACT ir. 21 

To any licre, let such witlicliaw. But tliou, 

Prothous, since our power -svill have two beads, 
May choose the side where she is not : yet so, 
Thy choice will flout experience and make less 
Thy chances of good fortune. 

Pi'oth. Be it so : 

1 shall at least not lessen self-respect. 

TIlcs. Even as thou wilt, or think'st : the royal maid, 
Rich in all others' homage, will not pine. 
To be denied thy own. But unto whom, 
O Princes, — since ye all ( Plcuronian Prothous 
Only except) seem emulous of tlie joy 
To attend the quiver'd virgin ; and there be. 
As thou, Peiritlioos, and the shield-"nnde breast 
Of Zeus-descended Telamon, some whose eyes 
Dart flames like Mcleagros' and the orbs 
Of Thestian Comctes at the thought, — 
To which of our twin parties shall belong 
Arcadian Atalanta, if not rather 
She lead a third division of her own ? 

ProtJi. O shame to manhood ! if that men there be 
To follow with weapons to a warlike sport. 
Where failure may be death, a woman's lead. 
Fancy the train ! more fit to dance in glade 
Than scour the forest. Leto's '^ child herself 
Leads nymphs, not satyrs ; and tlie hairy cheek 
Should Ijlush to be so shadow' d from the sun. 

Mel. Shame on thyself ! and let tliy own cheek blush. 
Art thou the only man, where all around 



22 5IELEAGR0S 



Are braver than thyself, experienc'd more, 
Have oftener cop'd with death, as has this maid ? 

(En, Forbear, O son ! 

Mel. Here in thy halls, O sire, 
Thy son should shield thy guests from aU reproach, 
Even from an uncle. But not hate to her 
Puts on this shape of insult, nor disdain, 
But jealousy of me. 

Froth. Of thee? 

Mel. Of me. 

Proth. Now ! 

Thes. Likewise thou forbear. And where ye are 
Stand both of ye. Am I of no account ? 
Let fall thy hands for my sake, Meleagros, 
If not thy sire's, and let thy sheath'd sword drop 
Back to his custom' d place. Know not all men 
That thou canst use it promptly, and that well ? 
And thou, O Prothous, is it from my lips 
A stranger in this house that thou must learn 
What honor is its due ? By -iEgeus' ghost. 
He who first lays his hand upon his hilt 
Again before me makes of me his foe. 
And see, O son of ffineus, where, herself. 
All ros'd Avith shame, and anger of hurt pride, 
The virgin huntress waits a chance to speak 
In her own cause. 

Aial. O royal Theseus, thou 
King (Eneus, and ye piinces all, who giieve, 
I see it, for the slight put on me here. 



ACT ir. 23 

Where I came, not intrusive, but invited 
With the same flattering urgencc as the rest, 
Ye will not, seeing that of your number one 
Alone is hostile, one alone speaks words 
Of insult and disparagement unprovok'd, 
Look for response of other kind than Avords 
Like his disdainful, but, unlike his, just, — 
If rather I should not treat with silent scorn, 
As your looks now assure me, what deserves 
No notice, commg unprovok'd from him, 
From him to me. What passion in his breast 
Gave Ate jsower to stu- up strife between 
His sister's son and him because of me, 
I know not ; for, tUl now, has been no sign 
Of variance 't-\vixt them, or to me of spite. 
Since our here- coming. Haply 't is, as said, 
His rage that to his nephew sliould be given 
The post of honor, and that I approv'd. — 
Let Mm not interrupt me. 

Tlies. No ! that hand 
So wav'd shall be, and is, a sceptre. I 
Am chieftain here, and tliis is GEneus' house. 
Atal. I have not much to say. I came to aid. 

Such was my thought ; but doubtless too inspir'd 

By love of glory, and that i-elish habit 

Has given me for the dangers of the chase. 

I knew not that ambition was deny'd 

To woman ; and I had that pride to think 

I knew as much as the Pleuronian prince 



24 MELEAGKOS 



Of my life's practice. And your murmui-s say 

I speak to the purpose. Thanks. Encourag'd thu3 

By your approvance, I might slight, as sand 

In a summer's gust, the annoyance from one man 

Put upon me, a harmless woman, but not 

Defenceless, were I so provok'd to try 

My weapons against his. But since my presence 

Breeds difference here, I will withdraw, to bide 

"With Deianeira in tlie women's rooms 

The issue of the hunt, and then betake me 

Home to my country. 

(En. No ! Hear'st thou that cry 
That echoes me ? seest thou those waving arms ? 
Thou art one of the l^and, and not the least. Let him, 
Who alone of all gives neither voice nor liand 
Acclaiming, leave us. 

Md. Wlierefore ? Let liim stay. 
I, I will see, that she who is tlu-on'd among us, 
In our hearts and eyes, shall suffer no attaint 
From treasonous speech or malice. 

TJies. Son of CEneus ! 
Hold'st thou so cheap my favor ? And fear'st thou not 
To rouse once more the virgin's startled pride 
By thy untoward zeal ? There is no cause 
For difference. In our troop let Prothous take 
Position where he lists. Then Schoeneiis' daughter 
Will grace the happier side. Or ratliei-, thou, 
Our royal host, choose wliere the ivory quiver 
Shall glitter in our van. 



ACT II. 25 

Com. No, let the maid 
Her own election make. We yield not, any, 
Our claims to the honor, to which all save one 
Aspire witli jealous longing. 

ffi"/?. So 't were best ; 
Fitter for Atalanta, and from mc 
Lifting the biirden of a difficult choice, 
Invidious, if impartial. 

Thcs. Speak thou, then, 
O royal maiden. 

Atal. Were my -vvill to choose. 
My place would be with thee, illustrious Prince, 
Peirithoos and the heroes thou wilt lead. 
But Prothous would not go with Qi^neus' son, 
And should not in their mutual ire. Thus then, 
Scorning comparison with such as I, 
He would be lost to us wholly, where my will 
Would have him witness what a woman dares 
And learn to rate my quiver by his spear. 
Therefore, I take my lot with Meleagros. 
Nor is it with regret. No, 't is a joy, 
Since I may. not exult in Tlieseus' lead, 
To follow one so ardent in my cause. 
Who for my sake sets notliing by the hate 
Of his near km ; and for he is withal 
His son for whom we are gather' d, and whose halls 
Right royally have receiv'd us, adds to joy 
Contentment as from duty and right observ'd. 
Thes. Blest art thou, Meleagros. On thy front 



26 MELEAGKOS 



I see akeady Victory lay her wreath ; 
For thou hast taken from us our l^est head, 
And our most dexterous hand ; and Artemis, 
Though we make battle against her wrath, will stay 
Its desolation for her votary's sake. 
(En. Now to the temple, where the rites await. 
Lead thou, O son of ^geus, and thou, son, 
Take by the hand thy fortune. In her smile 
Fate beckons thee to victory ; though defeat 
IVIight even have relish, shar'd by such compeer. 

The company move up, Theskus 
leading, followed directly by Atalanta and Meleagros, 

to tJie entrance of the hall, CEnetjs standing aside. 
CoMETES and Nestor heJiind, in the foreground. 
Com. He seems prepar'd for either. 

.Nest. She as well. 
They are well mated. 

Com. Thou forgett'st Ms spouse. 
He has no right to look so radiant here, 
Basking in foreign beauty. 

Nest. I see not 
That he has need. The star that beams witliin 
Is brighter to my judgment, as its light 
More fits the sex. With that proud eagle nose, 
Those fiery eyes, and that audacious moutli, 
Sliines Atalanta more a handsome youth 
Than a true woman.'* It is our turn to move. 

As Nestor and Cometes go up, 
the Drop falls. 



ACT HI. 27 



Act the Third 

Scene. A remote part of tTie plain iefore Calydon. 

Enter 

TitESEUS ; Meleagros, with the hide 

and tusls of the boar ; Atalanta ; PROTnous ; Comb- 

tes ; Amphiaraos ; PEiRiTnoos ; Telamon ; 

Huntsmen, attendants of the princes, 

tearing certain wounded, and th^ todies of 

Anc^us and Eurytion, which Epocnos and Peleus 

accompany. 

Thes. Here halt we and decern the spoil : that thus 
The rightful victor may at the very gates 
Be recognized triumphant. Ye, who bear 
The sad load of our wounded and our dead, 
Proceed at once to tlie city. Goest thou too, 
O mourner of Ancocus ? '° Bear his head 
With honor, who has fallen as brave men fall, 
Albeit not in battle. Nor grieve so much 
Over Eurytion, O sad-brow'd Peleus. 
Thine was an accident that might have fallen 
To me or Meleagros, had the Fates 
So will'd it, or had Phoebus adverse turn'd 



28 MELEAGROS 



Our javelins aside. 

Exeunt Epocnos, Peleus, and the 
hearers of the slain. 
The clay, O Mends, 

Full of exciting peril, and not fi'ee 

Of loss to be deplor'd, has issued well. 

Though Epochos and Peleus, duty-led, 

May not be heard, yet let your voice pronounce, 

You others, who among ye, of all those 

Whose points have drawn the monster's blood, deserves 

Alone the immortal honor of the spoils. 

Ye turn from one to another and look to me. 

Must I then speak ? This royal maiden first, 

As was to be expected, gave a wound. 

Then Amphiaraos follow' d.°° But not one. 

Nor all of the many that in succession struck. 

Avail' d to harm. Sole Meleagros' spear 

Brought to a stand the hunted, and liis sword 

Achiev'd the difficult conquest. If not then 

To Atalanta, as the first to wound, 

Be given the spoils, they must of right be his 

Who overcame and slew the beast. 

ProtJi. Not more 

Than I and others whose spearheads and broad blades 

Were purple with the same blood as dy'd his. 
Mel. After his struck the spring in wluch ye dipp'd them 

And made its purple easier to flow. 
Proth. Must this be borne ? 

Mel. 'T is truth, and chafes but thee, 



ACT III. 29 

Not Olcleides, nor those other chiefs 

Who are thy betters, and who know my spear 

Mixdo safe thy venture. Atalanta sole • 

Th(s. She speaks, O Meleagros. Let her voice, 

■Wliose hand was foremost, now be lieard of right, 
If not decide. This even thy ire, O Prothous, 
IMust needs accord. 

Atal. Unhappy am I truly, 
^Mio have been the cause unweeting of tliis strife. 
I would I had been last who was foremost here, 
Foremost though not most skilful nor most bold, 
Foremost indeed by suiferance of him 
Who has proven most bold and skilful. But since chance 
More than my merit wills that iEgeus' son 
Should find I have some claim — Peace yet awhile, 
Disdainful, passionate, and ill-manner'd piince ! 
Some claim I say to the spoils, I wave my right, 
If I have really such — I wave it here. 
As is but simply just, and to you all. 
To all save one, appealing, and most of all 
To thee, our royal leader, I ask to whom 
Should fall these trophies, Isut to him whose arm 
Snatch'd them in victory from imminent death. 
And now l^cars up theh enormous weight as stauchly 
As if Ijut a blood-wet mantle and light helm. 
TJies. Daughter of Schoencus, thou hast spoken well, 
After my own heart, and the hearts of all 
Who are here uulnas'd : ^vitness those loud cheers, 
Those waving arms, and glad looks, whereby all, 



30 MELEAGROS 



Save the day's riglitful liero and his kin, 
Token approvance. Keep thou then the siioUa, 

Prince of Calydon, that grace thy manhood. 
Mel. If ])y the general will I dare retain them, 

'T is but to lay them at the maiden's feet, 
Who taught the way to win them and inspii-'d. 
P/'oth. She shall not have them ! If thou wav'st the right 
Falsely awarded thee, 't is to me they come. 
Next victor to thyself and thy near kin, 
Not to thy leman. [Stoops to lift the sjmUs. Mel. sets Ms 
foot on tliem. 

Md. Dar'stthou? Wilt thou Then, 

Let this chastise thee. 

Tlies. Part them. 

Pi'otli. 'T is too late; 

1 have my death-wound. 

Mel. Thou hast on thyself 
Brought it. 

Froth. I do defy thee, and would still. 
Could I stand up, do battle for my right 
Against thy arrogance, and that unscx'd maid 

Who would Avenge me, O brotlier. 

Com. Gone ? So soon ? 
Avenge I will : not thee alone, but her. 
Whom, faithful like her mother and as fair,^' 
Thy murderer, hot with an adulterous lust. 
Insults and seeks to outrage. Come thou ! 

3Iel. Stay, 
Thou madman and malis?ner. Flows not fresh 



ACT III. 31 

Thy brother's blood ? 

Nest. O priuces ! Mighty chief I 
Let them not fijjht ; for good Althaea's sake, 
For generous CEneus' ! 

Atal. And for mine, for mine ! 
Wouldst thou a second murder on thy soul, 
O rash Cometes ? No, no ! keep them back. 
Com. Stand from before him, thou unhappy cause 
Of all tliis strife. 

Mel. Fear not, O generous maiden ; 
^ly mother's otlier brother is safe from me. 
Com. From thee ? Advance, adulterer. 

TJies. Drop your points, 

Both of you. He who first 

Co?n. Come from her wing. 
Thou skulking paramour. Tliis for Prothous' sake. 

[sUglitly wounding Mel. 
Mel. Thou wilt then, ha ? Upon thy passionate head 
Be thy own blood. 

Tliey fight, despite the interposition of the 
princes, and Cometes /ctZ^s. 
Com. 'T is done. And all of thee, 
Hl-omen'd virgin, whom I lov'd too well. 
As he does falsely. Seek not for revenge, 
O my Couretes : I am — fairly slain. [^Dies. 
Thes. That honest wish will bear no fruit. Already, 
Lo where a teller of the twofold tale 
Makes for the river. ''^ War will blaze anew 
Between fierce Plcurou and her kindred race 



32 MELEAGROS 



Too prone to quarrel, nor can man foretell 
The setting of this day which rose so fair. 
Lift up the new dead. Look not so down-cast, 
Ill-fated Meleagros. Shed not tears, 
O Schceneus' daughter. Ere to-morrow's dawn, 
There may be more to weep for than this wo. 

While the attendants are lifting the iodies, 

Meleagros standing near with head deject, 

the Drop falls. 



ACT IV. 33 



Act the Fourth 

Scene. As in Act I. 

Alth^a, DEiAjsrEiRA. Cleopatra, 

Dd. Thou art not easily jealous, Cleopatra. 

Thou needst not be. With that heart- winning smile, 

Those Hera eyes, that skin the sun burns not, 

What is to fear in Atalanta's glow, 

Her brow imperious and her manlike mien, 

And that high nose with curve too like my own 

To wake love- fancies ? 

AWi. Yet Alcides saw 
No terror in its outline ; and these men 
Have their caprices often like ourselves. 
But, fair Alcyone, as thy mother call'd thee," 
That art as true as she, thou needst not doubt 
More than she did lov'd Idas, whose great heart 
Was not more sound than Meleagros' own, 
"Where beats no pulse disloyal. 

C'le. I do not doubt. 
My lord admires the huntress as I do, 
And loves her as I do love and all men must, 
True-hearted as she is and frank to utter 
What rises from her heart, and that alone. 



34 MELEAGROS 



He honors all our sex in honoring her, 

And I but love him more that he does. Next his, 

May her hand be most fortunate. 

Del. Next his 
It may ; but not before his. Where my brother strides, 
And wath a hostile purpose, Death behind 
Stalks as his servitor ; and save ^geus' son. 
And one more, moves no hero on this earth 
That is his match. 

Alth. Thy uncles are as brave. 
Though not so large of thews. 

Cle. That tale, O mother, 
Of Prothous' scorn and Meleagros' ire, 
Believ'st thou it ? 

Alth. Believe, but fear not therefore. 
Hot though of mood, thy spouse must still forbear 
His mother's blood, nor can that blood forget 
He is my son. Proceed we to the fane. 
The gods, that for the day's success receive 
Our anxious prayers, will listen to our vows 
For concord, and the sacrificial smoke. 
With our hearts' incense fraught, make welcome both. 

Enter 

Epochos and Peleus, 

followed ty learei's xoith the hodies of 

AnC^US a?ld EURYTION. 

What bring ye, princes ? — Not Anca^us dead ? 



ACT IV. 35 

Eurj-tion too ! Alas, we have been too slack ! 
My brothers ? 

Cle. And my husljand ? 

Dei. Mclcagros ? 
Speak, is he safe ? 

Epoch. Safe, lady, as are both 
Of Thestius' sons. 

Alth. O joy for all ! and thanks 
To the most high gods. 

Cle. Deep thanks. 

Dei. And how the day ? 
Is the boar slain ? has Meleagros won ? 
Epoch. Our sorrowful duty took us from the plain 
Wliere they adjudge the spoil. But (Eneus' son 
Was the chief \'ictor, and his lusty arm 
And shoulder bore the monster's hide and tusks 
Even when we left. 

JDei. I knew it ! Who is like 
My brother ! 

Cfe. And my sjiouse. 

Alth. Tliou radiant god, 
Whose darts give absolute death, all laud to thee, 
And grateful honor, who didst unstring thy bow, 
And shake the purpose of thy sister's heart 
Justly indignant. Thanks, O golden-hair'd, 
For my heroic son, for Thestius' sons 
My brothers thanks. A wolf shall smoke to thee, 
And the swart crow his feathers tinge in l:>lood 
Upon thy altar, while to her, thy twin, 



36 MELEAGROS 



A lamb shall bleat in saciifice. But oh, 
We are unjust, my daughters, and selfish-cruel, 
Forgettmg the grief of othere in our joy. 
Ai for Ancaeus ! Thou didst never taste, 
As thou wast told, that vintage, hapless king, 
Disdainful of jDresagement like my son. ^* 
How did he fall, O EiJochos ? 

Epoch. Driv'u to his fate 
By his rash courage, and too generous pride 
Aspuing to be first. Even whUe he lay 
Gor'd with that frightful wound, — there, where thou 

seest 
The blood-soak' d tunic sticking to the flesh, — ■ 
He rais'd his war- axe, battling even in death, 
Nor seem'd to wish my succor. 

AltJi. How still he lies. 
How pale, who was so flush with life and hope 
This very mom ! So may om-selves, when Morn 
Again looks o'er the mountains, be as pale. 
As still. [Pmise. 

But thou, why standest thou so mute, 
Bent o'er Eurytion,^* gloomily deject, 
O son of Zeus-bom ^acos ? Wliy that sign, 
Reijelling with thy palm, as if in horror 
My wistful sympathy ? 

Epoch. Ask him not. Thou seest. 

Fate tum'd his javelin ■ What avail the love 

Of the immortals and regard of men. 
When Destiny is adverse ? Hapless Peleus 



ACT IV. 37 

Renews the grief of his paternal isle,"* 
Here by the Euenos ; and 

Enter 

Servants of tJie Thestiadm 

tearing tlieir iodies, and followed hy 

Nestor. 

Alth. More dead ! 

Dei. O horror, 
Mother ! 

Altli. Cometes ? — Prothous ? — Both ? Thou didst 
Not toll of this ! Wliy didst thou keep it hid ? — 
Accursed day ! — O Prothous ! O my pride ! 
My brave, my handsome brothers ! Ai, ai ! — Answer I 
Why saidst thou they were safe ? 

Epoch. I saw them so. 
Alth. Saw ? And the hunt was over ? Ah ! ■ — Speak, thou, 
O son of Nelcus. 

Nest. Be more calm. They quarrel'd 
Ovej the spoil. — 

Alth. They? Who? Not my brothers. ' 

Nest. No. 

The prince, thy son, would give to Atalanta ■ 

Alth. My son ! Did Meleagros do this deed ? Art dumb ? 
Speak out in one word. Did he do tliis murder ? 

O my brave brothers ! — My ! Sjoeak it. Was it he? 

Nest. He and Cometes fought. — 

Alth. They fought ? Where then 



38 MELEAGKOS 



Was Protlious ? How did Prothous fall ? 

Murder' d ! struck down by that 

Nest. He us'd 
Insulting and despiteful acts and words 

Alili. Insulting and despiteful ? What could be 
The insult and despite should arm liis hand 
Against his uncles ? Thou insult' st to say so. 
Murder' d, and foully. They shall be aveng'd. 
Here in your gore, scarce clotted, O my lov'd, 
My brave, my beautiful, I dip my hands. 
And swear to exact atonement from that heart 
More savage than the boar's. Hear, ye Erinnyes ! — 

Del. Mother ! he is your son ! 

Cle. Have pity, mercy ! 

Altli. Had he then either ? Is not that my blood ? 

My father's blood ? Look there. They were, this morn, 

Active and brave as he. But now Look I look ! 

I will avenge them ; on my body's fruit, 
Blood of my blood, I will have life for life. 
I swear it by this gore which now I taste, 
Press' d to these lips which never will feel more • 
Their known caress. My brothers ! O my brave ! 

Nest. Lady, add not the terror of thy vows 

To what is raging now. Thou hast revenge. 
Hear'st thou that din ? The city is astir. 
The men of Pleuron are in battle now 
With thy son's followers and with our band 
Of heroes from the chase, and press them hard. 
I must be ffone to assist them. 



ACT IV. 39 

Epoch. Come, O Pelcus ; 
Thou ■nilt forget thy sorrow in the fight. 
For Theseus and for CEneus ! [Exeunt Epoch, and Pel. 

Alth. But stay, thou, 
Till thou hast heard me out. Then bear the tale 
To Meleagros. 

JVf'st. lie is wounded now. Relent, 
Thou mother, though a sister. 

Cle. On our knees, 
We adjure thee, we, his sister and his wife. 
He has been driven to anger. 

Alth. Driven? 

I>n. O mother, 
Thou wouldst not have him wanting in that fire 
Thyself now burn'st with ? On my life, my brother 
Was sore abus'd. Was he not, Prince of Pylos ? 
AUJi. Let not the Pylian speak. Look there. Those lips, 
Pallid and speechless, answer. And they say, 
Heaven hears no plea for mui'der. And to me 
They call, with their mute clamor. Life for life. 
I kneel beside you ; but to smite the ground 
With this blood-ljolter'd hand, and pray the gods, 
Hereunder who respond to human vows 
Like mine for vengeance upon human crime. 
Hear, Hades ! let thy curses on his head. 
The head of the god-defying, him who scoffs 
At fate and prophecy, and sets his heart, 
In its brute passion and ferocious force, 
Above maternal reason and the claim 



40 MELEAGROS 



Of blood maternal, — let my curses 

Dei. No, 
We will not stay, nor spouse nor sister, we, 
To listen to such horror. Be thou mad, 
O mother, in thy rage, our prayers shall rise " 
To Heaven for Meleagros whom thou wrong' st, 
Nor less for thee. Farewell, O uncles. Not now 
Are we allow' d to weep ye, though we wail 
In heart your timeless deaths. O son of Neleus, 
Bear to my brother, with my mother's wrath. 
Our sorrow and our faith. We know him guiltless 
Of aught but passion and manly ire. 

Alth. Stay both. 
Thou took'st from me all power to interrupt. 
Unnatural daughter. Stay, and thou O prince, 
Till I have shown my purpose. Tell him then. 
What thou shalt see. I have his life in my coffer. 
Stay tUl I bring it ; then go, to see him die. 

Gle. No, no, thou wilt not ! thou canst not, O mother ! 

AUTi. Cling not to me. It is in vain. 

Nest. What wouldst thou, 
O royal lady ? What means she ? 

Dei. 'T is the brand 
The Mosra gave, whose core, our mother tliinks, 
Shuts in liis life. She would destroy it. 

Alth. I will. 

Dei. Be not relentless ! for thy own sake, mother ! 
Embrace her knees with me, O Cleopatra. 
Beseech with us, O Nestor. 



ACT IV. 41 

JVest. Be acljur'd, 

O thou unhappy ! If a sister thou, 

Art thou not more, a mother and a wife ? 

Is thy son guilty, think'st thou that one crime 

O'crdocs another ? All liis forfeit blood 

Pour'd on thy brothers will not refill their veins, 

Nor bring back to those ghastly cheeks one flush 

Of real life. Cometcs' dying words 

Forbad revenge and own'd him fairly slain. 
Alth. It was his great soul. But how fell the other ? 

Speak not. I have heard thee ; and I stand unshaken. 

Life shall have life. I have sworn it by the blood . 
Which crimsons yet my fingers. Let me go. 
Mst. Woman, thou art unscx'd. Hast thou well thought 
There are gods above ? Not Hades hears alone 
Thy impious vows ; nor for thee, but against, 
The Erinnyes lift the unsparing scourge. Be wise. 
Over that heart which rages, swells the breast 
Where Meleagros suck'd. His little hands, 
Fecl'st thou not stUl their pressure, and his lijjs 
Drawing the stream whose fountain was thy blood ? 
Alth. Ay, and in this my body feel his weight 
And feeble yerk and quiver. But the blood 
Which fashion'd and there fed him drew its spring 
From Thestius ; and those there are Thestius' sons. 
Thou appeal' st, upbraid'st in vain. — Fight thou without, 
O cruel Meleagros ; here, within. 
Thy thread of life is measur'd, and thou shalt fall 
Not by the foeman, but thy mother's hand. — 



42 MELEAGROS 



Why dost tliou keep me, thou ? Thou dost not then 
Mock at my threats, and disbelieve as he. 
The godless and fate-scorning ? 

Nest. What to tliink 
I know not, but I hold it folly and sin 
To mock at destiny or incense high Zeus 
By hesitating faith. Now let me hence : 
The fight sounds nearer. Be adjur'd once more. 
Alth. Stay ! but a moment. Thou slialt not be deem'd 
Laggard for me. Wlien thou hast seen the brand 
Rekindled, go then to the field and tell 
My cruel son thou hast seen his life's fire burning 
Fast into ashes by Ms mother's hand. 

As Altlicea hurries out, 
the Br oj) falls. 



ACT V. 43 



Act the Fifth 

Scene. As he/ore. 

A Irnzicr of live coals. Alth^a 

Tiolding over them a half-clinrreci billet of wood. 

Nestor, Deianeira, a)id. Cleopatra 

standing near, xoith loolis of mingled Iwrror and amazement. 

Alth. Here in your ghastly presence, butclier'd sons 
Of royal Thestius, and yours ye brave who fell 
Not as they fell, slain by a kinsman's hand, 
I give to natural vengeance and to right 
The life I bare to nature. Fall, thou brand. 
Accursed, on the fire wliere is your home, 
And whence unwise I snatcli'd you. As the heat 
Consumes your redden'd core, so shall the flame 
Of a once loving mother's rage lick up 
Tlie hot blood of his vitals, till no drop 
Of life remains in the veins that were too swollen 
With pride and passion to have natural heat. — 

Cle. Have mercy, O mother ! — 

Dei. By the dead themselves 
We adjure thee ! — 

Nest. For the li^nng and the dead. 

Alth. Buni quickly, fire ; do tliy fatfd work 



44 MELEAGKOS 



At once, O brand, and crumble ; that my lieaii; 
May not have time to falter, nor my hand 
Snatch thee again in foolishness away 
Ere justice is accomplish' d. 

Nest. She is lost 
To reason as to feeMng. Let us hope 
The gods put never into mortal hands 
The power to influence fate. Yet call the King, 
Who may alone control her. O anxious spouse 
And sister, I seek your lov'd one in the field. 
Alth. TeU him, while thou didst talk the fire burn'd on. 
Tell him, if yet in life to hear thee tell, 
I stir the coals. See. As these sparks shoot up, 
And fall and die on the instant, so, swart king 
Who reignest in Erebus, but whose sceptre sways 
Wherever on Earth men die ; and thou, the beautiful, 
Rapt fi'om bright Enna and compell'd to share 
His ebon" throne, made pitUess as he ; 
Ye too who stand at their right hand and their left, — 
Ye of the fireless sacrifice wherewith 
No wine is mingled,^* and ye other three 
Who spin and wind the thread of human life, — 
Servants of Zeus, joint agents of his will. 
Remorseless in pursuit of filial crime. 
Hear me : as rise and fall and die these sparks, 
So let his life's fire wholly be extinguish'd ; 
Then take me to yourselves ; for which I shear 
And give to the fire this forelock, unto thee, 
Child of Earth-Mother,-" that I may lie down 



ACT V. 45 

And sleci? with the slayer and slain. 

As Nestor, wlio Ms leen retreating' to the door, 

is about to disajypear, 

Enter 

JIeleagros, lame on the arms of four men 

and followed Inj Atalanta. 

Nestor tal-es his 2)lace ly the latter. 

Then enter {while Althcea speaks) servants with a low couch, 

on which they place the xooiinded hero. 

Ah ! Thou art come. 
Mel. And dying, O mother. 

Alth. Dying? 'T is of me. 
Seest thou the brand ? 

Mel. I see, — and have been told 
Thy unnatural purpose. But my life flows out 
By twenty wounds made by the foemen's spears, 
More fatal than my uncle's. 

Enter ffiNEUS. 

(En. O my son ! — 

Thou woman ! Ho ! bring water ! 'T is not yet 

Too late to save the brand. 

Mel. It is for me. 
Let the wood ))urn. My mother will weep blood 
"When I am dead, — and dead, as she wall think, 
Through her. O Atalanta, let not tears bestain 



46 MELEAGROS 



Thy virgin clieeks. My Cleopatra, come 
Close to my side. Thou, Deianeira dear, 
Whose brave heart is too swollen to let thee speak, 
Kiss me. Now comfort thou our -sire. He stands 
Lost, as thou seest, in his passion of grief, 
Unweeting what to do. O cruel mother, 
So stem and pallid o'er thy futile task, 

Though the gods have not given thee power to harm ■ 

AUh. They have to wreak their vengeance. On these coals 
Shall fall no drop of water. 

E7iter 
Theseus, witTi Pekithoos a?i(l others. 

Mel. [7(«//'-ris/«^.] Is all well? 

Thes. The foe have fled, and Calydou is sav'd. 
But at what cost, O Meleagros ! 

AUh. Not 
The cost of victoiy. CEneus' son lies there. 
Waiting to join liis uncles, whom he slew 

TJies. Not unprovok'd, and one in self-defence. 

Atal. With a man's spirit, resentful of the wrong 
Done to a guest, a woman and his fiiend. 

Well may I weep, O hero : but for me 

Thou mother, who stand'st so tearless and so fix'd, 
Watching those embers with that stony look 
As if thou wast the Moera, \n\t thou see 
Thy only son, the generous and the brave. 
Pass from thee unconsol'd ? Is not his blood, 



ACT V. 47 

Shed for his sire, his people, forthyself. 
Enough atonement ? Vent on me, the cause, 
Though innocent, of these woes, thy vengeful wrath. 
But spai'e to him one word, one sign, one look, 
Of pity. 

Mel. Mother! 

Alth. Meleagros. — No, 
Thou shalt not see me weep.'° That tender voice — 
Thy boyhood's — shall not make mine break. I have 

sworn it : 
Life shall have life. But not for that alone 
Thou diest, O cruel ; thou hast mock'd the gods. 
Else would they not have sanction'd my revenge. 

Mel. The gods that are liigh aljove us are too high 
To pimish man for reason, or to make 
Their rational worship blasphemous. If my death 
Is other than the sequel of my acts 
Of rashness and hot blood, it is the due 
Exacted for my ancestor, whose crime 
Pollutes my veins through thee, O Thestius' child. 
When thy sire's foresire slew Apollo's sons. 
So deem'd, and to their ravish' d kingdom gave 
Or left his name,'' thus for all future song 

Recording his dishonor and liis crime 

]My breath grows short. — 

Alth. The fire is dymg out. 

(En. Althaea ! 

Dei. ) 

„, > together. ^ Mother! 

vie. ) 



48 MELEAGROS 



(Eti. Del. Cle. {nearly together. ] Save liim ! 

Mel. 'T is too late - 
Both for the brand and me. If human gore 
Gives solace to the dead, my veins arc drain' d, 
Not for my uncles, but Apollo's sons. 
The god has taken us three. ^'^ Farewell, O friends — 
And lov'd ones. Blessings, mother, upon thee — • 
Even for thy curses, which have done — no harm. 

{Dies. 
Altli. Lo, the last ember ashes. 

Thes. And lo, thy son. 
AltJi.'''' Not dead ? Thou dost not say it ! Slain by me ? 
By me — his mother ! How his bold man's lips 
Have fallen, which I have kiss'd so oft. O quick, 
Bind uj) that jaw before it be too flx'd, — 
And close those eyes — those eyes — which never more ■ 

Never — - never I cannot do it : I can not, 

Can not, now see. — He bless' d me when he died — 
Me his destroyer. — Lay his large limbs straight. 
The curse indeed is on my father's house ; 

And I have given it O my brave ! my tears 

Rain fast enough now, now. But I should weep — 
Thou saidst it — Meleagros — tears of blood. 
It is a fit atonement. Wait for me : 
Thou too shalt have life for life. I vow it. 

\_Exit hastily. 
Thes. Save her, 
Deianeira I Atalanta, save ! 



ACT V. 49 

To Cleopatra leave the dead ; to me, 
The unhaijpicst of sons, the afflicted sire. 

AtaIjAnta and De'ianeira hasten after Althma. 

Cleopatra kneels, embracing tlie head of the hero, 

over lohich her hair falls disheveled. 

Theseus, stooping tenderly, touches the shoulder 

of (Emus, who, with his head to the floor, 

is at the foot of the couch. 

The Curtain falls. 
Vol. m.— 3 



NOTES TO MELEAGROS 



1. — p. 5. DeJaneira.] The reader will please sound tlie 
first e as n in fate, and the first ^ as e in me. The name is, I 
need hardly say, the Greek form of what we write, after the 
Latins, Dejanira, but sound so harshly, not in their way, but our 
own, Dedj-a-ni'ra. Ovid, who adopts the Greek termination for 
Meleagros, also makes Deianira of five syllables, as here. 

In the name Meleagros, sound the first syllable like the corre- 
sponding' one in melon, and the a as rt in father. (Eii'eus is of 
two syllables, like The' sens, ^'geus, and the like. 

2. — P. 6. Hack not daring, and my chariot wheels Have out- 
strip2')'d theirs — ] Deianeira, reputed ( in after days ) to have 
been bom of Althaea by Dionysus ( Bacchus ), as Meleagros by Ares 
( Mars, ) was skilled in charioteering, and warlike : A«ri) ie 'wioxc, 
Kai Ta Kara noXeixov r\aKct. She was betrothed and afterward mar- 
ried to Heracles, who had contended with Achelous because of 
her. Apollod. Bihl. I. viii. p. 113, in Fragm. Histor. Oraec. 
Miilleri ( Paris. 8= 1841 : ) T. I. 

3. — P. 6. Whom the woiid knoics already, for his deeds. As 



52 NOTES TO 



Heracles — ] "Heracles" (or, as we write it, after the Latin, 
Hercules ) is a name of honor. Previously, the hero bore but his 
patronymic. " Nomen habet ab ;;f)nr, i. e. %apii','et to Ky^coi : npa est 
per apocopen ab rjpava et €-mr)(iava^ idque ab tpnoj amo. * * * Ante 
nominatus fuerat AX/ieio?, ab avo ejus paterno : post Pythius ei no- 
men dedit 'HpaicAi;?, his versibus : 'apaK\tr]v &t ac ^ot0o; tnoivvjiov 
E^ovofia^ei, hpa yap avdpio-ani'yi ifiepwv, K\coi a(pdiToi> £^«i;. Ex qUO appaxct 

etymologia nominis, quia grata multa contulit humano generi 
viribus suis. Spiritus asper vero est Atticus. " Damm. in nom. 

4. — P. 6. Woitklhe loere Jiere ! ] He was in Lydia, undergo- 
ing his expiatory servitude. — In the preceding line, Hera is 
Juno. 

5. — P. 7, Tliouwast tlien seven days old: etc. etc.] . . tovtov 

Se ovTOS n/j.tpiov iizTa^ napayevoixevai ra; JMoipaj (paaiv eiirtiv Tore TEKtvrriaei 
MsAsaypi)?, oTav o Kaiajjieyog em rrjS ca^apu; JaXoj KaraKaiJ. APOLLOD. 
uM S. 

6. — P. 8. CEJneus' son Slio^dd dread celestial anger.] The 
boar, the chase of which gives rise to the incidents and catas- 
trophe of the story, is fabled to have been sent by Artemis 
( Diana ) to avenge the unintended slight put upon her by CEneus, 
when, sacrificiug to the other gods in acknowledgment of a 
bountiful harvest, he omitted her divinity. — Mara in the text 
is Fate. 

7. — P. 9. — the flood Which bears my wife's unhappy grand- 
sire's name.] The Euenos [Eve'nus]. Evenus was father of 
Marpessa, the mother of Cleopatra. His daughter's saitors were 
required to contend with him in a chariot-race. Those that 
were unsuccessful were decapitated. At last Idas, brother of 
Lynceus and son of Aphareus, obtained the prize ; whereupon 



MELEAGROS 53 



Evenus slew bis ovnx horses and threw himself into the river 
which, called Lycormaa, took afterward his name. It is, next to 
the Achclons, the largest river in iEtolia. It has its source in 
Mt. CEta, and divided Pleuron from Calydon. 

Mt. l\(fhiasHus is on the coast in the neighborhood of ancient 
Calydon. Tnehunis is one of the lakes of yEtoIia. The Gulf is 
the Gulf of Corinth, which bounds .^<]tolia on the south. 

8. — P. 9. — through Plcuron's stem.] Thestius (brother of 
Evenus ) was son of Demonice by Mars. Demonice was daughter 
of Agenor, as Parthaon, the father of CEueus, was his son ; and 
Agenor was son of Pleuron. Thus Pleuron was the common 
ancestor of CEneus and Althaea. 

llddes (above) is Pluto; Ares., Mars. Hermes (below) is 
Mercury. 

9. — P. 13. — unfa cor'' d of the skies — ] CEneus' career was 
full of trouble to its close, when, disgusted with the scene of his 
many calamities, he left it in self-banishment, and died on the 
way to Argolis. 

10. — P. 14. We7'e they all of our inland — ] Where the people 
were renowned for tenacity and valor. 

11. — P. 14. — who slew its Crommyan dam — ] Theseus. 

12. — P. 15. — ScJianeus' daughter — ] This is the parentage 
usually assigned to Atalanta : and Schoeneus with mythologists 
and lexicographers is made to be Kuig of Scyros, a rocky island 
of the Cyclades. Apollodorus, in his ill-digested book, makes 
her in one place ( where he enumerates the Calydonian hunters — 
I. viii. ) daughter of Schceneus of Arcadia.^ and in another (when 
giving the particulars of her history — III. iv. ) tells us her parents 



54 KOTES TO 

wer6 lasus and Clymene ; and as lasns was the son of Lycurgns 
of Arcadia, Cepheus and Antfasus, both present at the chase, 
would be her uncles. Ovid calls her, as the child of Schoeneus, 
" Schjeneia" (Met. x.), and (ib. viii.), as of Arcadia, (supposing he 
does not mean another of the name,) " Nonacria " and " Tegea3a " 
(from Noniwris and Tegea or Tegeum, towns of that kingdom. ) 
So that we find respectable authorities asserting there were two 
heroines of the name, between whom they divide the romance of 
Atalanta's story. These inconsistencies or variations in ancient 
fable are often very embarrassing. 

13. — P. 16. Tinder Idson — ] In the Argonautic expedition, — 
as mentioned by CEneus in Act I. 

14. — P. 16. lie who is kiii^ etc.l Their mothers were cousins 
according to Plutarch, ^thra being the daughter of Pittheus and 
Alcmena of Lysidice, children of Pelops and Hippodamia. Vita 
Tim. § vii Op. T. i. ed. Reiske ( Lips. 8° 1774, ) p. 15. 

15. — P. 17. — my sire Had for my sex the same disdain as 
tJiou.l Disappointed in not having a male child, he exposed the 
infant bom to him, which was suckled by a bear and grew up to 
become the woman Theseus presently describes. Apollod. III. 
iv. p. 164 cd. cit. 

16. — P. 18. Nor sounds tlie ivoi'y quiver on her shoulder — ] 

Ex liumero pendens resonabat ebiirnea Ixvo 
Telornm custos OviD. Mat. VIII. 320. 

17.— P. 21. —Leto—\ Latona. 

18. — P. 26 — more a handsome youth Than a true %comMn.\ 
Ovid, before me, so prefigured the mien of the huntress : 



MELEAGROS 55 



facies, quain ilicerc vere 

Virgineam in piiero, iiucrilcm in viit'iiio, posses. ( ?/. s. 322 ) 

It is an inevitable judgment, from her pursuits and the fable of 
her life. 

19. — V. 27. mourner of Ancceus.] Epochos. 

On the pediment of a temple of Minerva in Tegea, Pausanias, 
who was told it was the work of Scopas, saw a sculptured repre- 
sentation of the Calydoniau boar-hunt. Among the other figures, 
Epochos is described as sustaining in act to raise him ( avtx<'"' ) 
Anca3us, already wounded and holding rip his battleaxe. Lib. 
VIII. xlv. p. 693, ed. Kuhn. Lips, m fol. 1G9G. 

The accidental death of Euiytion by the javelin of Peleus, pres- 
ently alluded to, is mentioned by ApoUodorus : I. viii. p. 113 ed. c. 

20. — P. 28. Then Amphiaraos followed.] Apollou. ib. 114. — 
It is he whom, afterward in the text, Meleagros designates by 
his patronymic, O'ideides. 

21. — P. 30. — faithfulince Jier mother and as fair — ] Mar- 
pesa, Marpessa, or Marpissa, Cleopatra's mother, when given the 
choice by Jupiter, preferred her husband to Apollo. Homer 
mentions her beauty and alludes to her fidelity in Phoenix' story 
of Meleagros ( 11. ix. ) Idas, her husband and Cleopatra's 
father, is included among the hunters by Ovid : Et celox Idas. 

22. — P. 32. — the river. ] The Evenus, which, as said above, 
divided Pleuron from Calydon. 

23. — P. 33. — as thy mother caWd thee — ] In memory of her 
grief when carried off by Apollo. 

Tiji/ (?£ TOT r.v jityapoiai rraTrip icai iroTvla jtrjrrip 



66 NOTES TO 



A.\kvovtiv Ka\ceaKov ETTiovvjtov, ouvtic' api' avrrt; 
M.rjTrip, A.\KVOvoi TToXvirepdcoi oituv C)(^ovaa^ 
KAai', OTC ^£1/ iKaEpyoi avrjpiraat ^oiPoi AttoXXuv, 

Hon. II. IX., 561. text. Wolf, (in Tauchnit. ed. Lips. 1829.) 

Alcyone or Alcyon (Halcyon, Attice) was the ill-fated wife of 
Ceyx, King of Trachinia, on seeing whose drowned body she 
threw herself into the sea, and was changed into the bird that 
bears her name. Ceyx and Halcyon, like Idas and Marpessa, 
were patterns of conjugal affection. Their story is told, with 
much beauty and elegance of detail, by Ovid ( 3fet. xi.), who has- 
displayed in the narrative certain nice touches of nature that 
render it very pathetic. 

24. — P. 36. Thou didst never taste, etc. ] On a certain occa- 
sion, when overlooking the labor of his vineyard, he was told he 
would never drink of the vintage. When the wine was made, he 
was about to try it, reminding the speaker of his prophecy, who 
answered by repeating the proverb : IToAXa utralu tteAei kvXiku^ Kai 
XsiXao; aKpo'j- There is many a slip Hwixt the cup and the Up. At 
that moment the messenger came from CBneus. Fired at the 
news, he threw down the untasted cup and hastened to prepare 
for that exijedition in which he was the first to perish. 

25. — P. 36. — Eurytion- — ] Apollodorus writes Eurytion. 
But in the usual stories of the eventful life of Peleus, it is Eury- 
tiLS^ his father-in-law, whom he is said to have killed in the 
Calydonian hunt. And to Eurytus is assigned the same parent- 
age which the old grammarian gives to Eurytion, whom, and not 
Eurytus, Ovid, a century later, names among the heroes.* It is 
easy to see how the names and the stories have been confounded. 

* And inversely, Eurytion the Centaur is called, by the same poet, Eurytus. 



MELEAGROS 57 



So with AncaKus above. Some make the Ancaeus of the v-ine, 
who met his death also by a wild boar, to have been the son of 
Neptune, and the other (of the play) of Lycurgus. Damm {Lex. 
Horn. Pind. ) applies to the latter the fable told in Note 24. But 
there needed not so good an authoritj' for a dramatist, and the 
confusion between names and events that are of similar sound 
and character is of frequent occurrence throughout mythology. 

26. — P. 37. Renews the grief of his paternal ide — ]. He had 
had the misfortune to kill his brother Phocus, or to be accessory 
to his death ; on which account he fled from M^ma, to the court 
of Eurytus in Phthia. 

The partiality of the gods for Peleus, and the honor in which 
he was held by men, are marked by the events of his history. 
Juno herself is made to say of him {II. xxiv. 61 : ) . . . oj ntpi Knpt 

0iX»; yc^CT adavaTotatr. 

27. — P. 44. — ebon throne — ] Homer makes no mention of the 
wood i/^cpoi. But this is no proof that its existence and nature 
were not known, as well as those of ivory. Hence the use of the 
epithet here is not properly an anachronism, or violation of cos- 
tume. I could easily have adopted the other reading, " mourn- 
ful throne," or for the two verses this one : 

" Wlio shar'st his throne, made pitiless as he." 

28. — p. 44. Ye of the fireless sacrifice wherewith No wine is 
mingled.] The Erinnyes or Furies. 

29. — P. 44. — Earth-Mother — ] Arinnrrip {Vii ijnrrji') : Ceres. 

30.— P. 47. Of iJity. Mq\. Mother ! kWa. Meleagros. — No.] 

The most natural reading, and thus the first that occurred to me, 

is : 

3-x- 



58 NOTES TO MELEAGROS 



" Of tnie forgiveness. 

Mel. Mother I 

Alth. Meleagros. 
No, thou shalt not see me weep." 

But the " No" is hyijercatalectic ; and it is not every reader that 
would throw the emphasis on '■^ shalt" : so that the verse might 
be made to halt. 

31. — P. 47. — to their ravislCd kingdom gave. Or left his name 
— ] ^tolia (from ^to'lus.) — "for all future song-." "To 
all future time " is the first and better reading ; but it makes a 
rhyme. 

33. — P. 48. The god has taken us three.'] Certain ancient 
poems, according to Pausanias (X. xxxi. p. 574 ed. cit.), made the 
hero to have been slain directly by Apollo, who took the side of 
the Couretes. 

33. — P. 48. N'ot dead? TJlou dost not say it ! ] Althsea has 
her eyes fixed on the embers. It is only when Theseus says, 
" And lo, thy son," she lifts them and sees the dead. 



THE KEW CALYAEY 



A TRAGEDY 



BEING THE COMMENCEMENT OF 
THE SIXTH VOLUME OP THE DRAMATIC SERIES 



LAUGHTON OSBORN 



PREFACE TO THE NEW CALYARY 



I HAVE ■written one Calvary to suit the prejudices, or 
the superstitions, of others. It failed to attract atten- 
tion. I wi-ite one now to satisfy myself. I might hope 
for its success, if one could ever hope success for truth in 
this world. But truth is a plant of very slow and not 
always steady growth, and its flower may not open for a 
thousand years. Let us wait till then. 



THE ISTEW OALYARY 



MDCCCLXEX 



CHARACTERS, Etc. 

Jestjs of Nazareth. 

Pontius Pila'tus, Procurator of Judea. 

Joseph Caiaphas, High-priest. 

NiCODEMXJS, 



of the Sanliedrim. 
Joseph of Ramatha'ui (Arimatliea), 

Judas Iscakio'tes, 1 

Simon Pet'ros, > of Jesus' disciples. 

John, J 

Marius, a Subcenttirion. 

Two Witnesses Tjefore the Sanliedrim. 

A Scribe. 

Malchus, Chief Servant of the High-priest. 

Camilla, wife of Pontius. 
Mary Magdalena. 

Mary, Mother of Jesus. Martha. Certain of the People. 
Certain of the Disciples. Roman Soldiers. 

Scene. Jerusalem and its Environs. 



THE NEAY CALVARY 



Act the First 

Scene I. TJie Hall of the Procurator'' s Palace, 

Pontius. Camilla. 

Pon. Thou hast heard to purpose. Wilt tliou ]>& a Jew ? 

Camil. Nor that, nor anything but what I am. 
Was I not Roman, I were still thy wife : 
Thy people were trnj people, and thy gods 
Would have my worship. 'Tis the Jew book's talk. 

Pon. Recited lovingly. 'Tis well, my child. 
By Jupiter ! I thought thou wast bewitch' d 
By this same Jesus. Wherein lieth his charm. 
That dames flock wildly to him as he Avere 
Another Attis, or a Bacchus come 
With pipe and cymbal and the fruit whose juice 
Inflames the passions ? Is tlie man so fair ? 



8 THE NEW CALVARY 



Gamil. Few are less favor' d/ Even in the throng 
Of his ignoble followers stands there none 
Less mark'd of aspect, while in grace of form 
And comeliness of visage there be two 
Beside whom seems the Rabbin at first sight 
Rudely plebeian. But behold him stand, 
With his right arm outstretched, his left hand holding 
His coarse and scanty habit to his breast. 
Look in his eyes, wliich under their bent brows 
Flash lightning, or with sharp imperious glance 
Pierce to the very marrow of the soul, 
And then again ( the l:)row relax' d and face 
Serenely open as a cloudless sky) 
Fill with a godlike pity, or a grief 
So touching that your own eyes swim in tears 
Only to see them, hear his matchless voice. 
Now, fiercely vehement, with a prophet's wrath 
Denouncing wo, or calling to repent 
The reckless guilty, now, subdu'd and sad, 
And tender as a lover's whisper, breathe 
Lament o'er fallen Israel, or appeal, 
With a sublime compassion, to the hearts 
Of the afflicted, and though Bacchus' self 
Or Berecynthian Attis were beside. 
Thou 'dst see but him alone, nor only see. 
But hear admuing, ravish' d, not amus'd. 

Pon. Thou paint'st a dangerous man. I wonder not 
The High-priest dreads him. Even now he seeks 
Means to arrest him quietly, and calls 



ACT I. SC. 1. 

lu furtherance my power, not to spare 
Should the man's acts condemn liim. 

Camil. "Tis the hate 
Engcuder'd of his bigot creed and nurs'd 
By fears of change, which, to tlie proud of place 
"Wlio fatten on abuses, give, or wake 
Anew, disquiet, when inquiring minds 
Seem to observe tliem closely, or refuse 
To be driven unquestioning, like the harness' d brute. 

Pon. Thou art wise and pithy, but art wrong in tliis. 
'Tis not his dogmas Caiaphas detests 
Or finds pernicious. "What to him indeed, 
Whether the man be ]\Ioses come again, 
Or one of those wald rantere, whose stuff' d talk, 
Half poetry, half madness, fills the scrolls 
Of these cajjp'd monotheists, sacred held 
As their half-savage, narrow-minded laws 
And lying histories, as we hold, ourselves, 
The Sybil's fragments, scatter' d prate like it? 
What, though he were the Essean John * himself 
Come, with his head on, back again to earth 
And his lavations ? In his narrow creed 
Shut as in walls, the pontiff sits serene. 
And smiles at wliims he knows his stolid race 
Would only scoff at, though ten Christs should spring 
Out of this one Messias' head and rave — 

Camil. No, preach — • 

Pon. And preach ten times as loud as he. 

No, 'tis his aims, or those his followers have 
1* 



10 THE NEW CALVARY 



For his behoof. The liars feign him sprung 
Of ancient Da%ad, whose long-buried throne 
They would unearth, repair its shatter'd seat, 
And put him in possession. Mad attempt ! 
And yet not more so than the many made 
By this contentious people, whose strong necks 
Still wince and writhe beneath the needful yoke 
They never shall shake off. 

Camil. Believe it not. 
The Rabbin claims no sceptre on the earth, 
Save what he wields already o'er the soul. 

Pon. That can have no great sway. 

Camil. Not now, not here. 
But how hereafter ? and in other climes ? 
When the man passes, but his creed remains. 
Wilt thou not hear liim ? 

Pon. With his rabble ? No. 
'Twould add to liis influence, and give umbrage where 
My place would bid me shun it. 'Tis enough 
I put no let on thee. 

Camil. Then hear him here. 

Pon. Here, in my halls ? a Jew ? He would not come. 

Camil. He would. To him, in his large soul, are one 
Both Jew and Gentile, and no place is bann'd, 
Since nothing is not cleanly in itself. 
Save as man's vices make it. Let him come. 

Pon. And make me, as his subtle speech has thee, 
A Nazarene in heart, or of his sect ? 
No, pretty reasoner : nor go thou too oft 



ACT I. SC. 1. 11 

To the man's out-cloor temples, lest thy soul 
Learn a new worship, or it be rcmark'd 
To my reproach. 

Camil. And be not thou misled 
By the designing pontiff, nor tliy staff 
Put in his hand, wherewith to lireak the back 
Of a good man and hannlcss. 

Pon. Is he such, 
Harmless I mean, (for be he good or Ixad, 
That may concern the Iligh-pricst, doth not me, ) 
Thou need'st not fear. ]My faith, thou know'st, is large 
And takes in all religions, and my staff. 
If heavy in office for the backs tliat rise 
In insolent rebellion, weighs a straw 
On those that bend obsequious to its rule. 



12 THE NEW CALVAEY 



Scene IT. 

In ike abode of Mary Magdalena : a mean apartment, dimly 
lighted by a lamp. 

Jesxjs. John. SnioN. J'Lvry. 

Ma. Yea, master, would it do thee good, assist 
Thy rise to power, or for a moment ease 
Thy footstep, I would gladly make my head 
A stool for thy feet, not merely wipe them dry 
Or dust them with these wicked hairs, whose mass 
And fineness, have they been a charm indeed. 
Have help'd ensnare my soul and made for me 
A vail of shame. 

Jesiis. If so thou feel it, Mary, 
Thy haks will be a glory. Wliy then blame 
The beauty God has given ? In the blood 
And the soul's Aveakness Satan finds alone 
His power of mischief, and the ugly fall 
As easily as the comely. Nor debase 
Thyself to do me service. 'Tis my head 
Should lower itself, and doth, for thee and all. 
But art thou ti-uly penitent, so pray 
Not to be led to evil. Dost thou so ? 

Ma. "Why ask'st thou that, master ? 



ACT I, SC. .2. 13 

Jcvis. Judas looks 
Lovingly on thy locality. 

3fa. Master! 

Jesus. Save 
John only, \\\\o is fairer, is there none 
Consorts with thee more gifted Avith those chaiTns 
Of face and form vrhich take at sight tlic hearts 
Of womanldnd. 

ira. xVt thy lov'd feet, like Ruth, 
Without Ruth's secret hopes, more joy were mine 
To lie by the hour, than pillow' d by the side 
Of David or of Absalom. One day, 

Shouldst thou wed Martha 

Jesus. That will never be. 
Ma. Mary, thy mother, hopes it, and so thinks. 
Jesus. ]\Iary my mother hopes and thinks to see 
My hands once more rchardcn to the craft 
That was my father's, yet the spikes shall pierce 
More easily through my palms' flesh to the planks 
Than shall my shut palms diive them. Tliou wouldst say, 

Should I wed Martha 

3fa. Thou wouldst have indeed 
A gentle and true wife and a fair withal, 
Yet all her passion, and she loves thee well, 
Would not a tithe make of the least of that 
Which fills to the full the brain and grateful heart 
Of the poor creature thou didst not despise 

When hypocrites 

Jesus. Wouldst thou then tempt me too ? 



14 THE NEW CALVAKY 



Ma. Who, master, could do that ? 

Jesus. All women may, 
AU men may, if but, for a moment's space, 
The heart nods o'er its duty and the eyes 
Cease to look upward, Godward. Mary, peace : 
Speak never more what fits me not to hear, 
Nor these who be with me. 

Ma. It had not been dar'd: 
But thou, O master, didst seem to see me falling, 
Because I fell. 

Jesus. They, Mary, who trip once 
May after stuml)le. 'Tis tlie unsure foot 
That cannot be rely'd on to be firm. 
Our sins are habits, as our vices are. 
Wlio to himself shall say, he not again 
WiU do what he hath done, when to have done 't 
Itself suggests the doing of it again 
And makes it twice more easy ? Do not weep ; 
I not distrust thee, Mary, not in soul. 
There thou art wash'd, regenerate ; but the flesh 
Is the old Adam. See that not the fruit 
Held by the tempter make thee twice an Eve. 
Lo where he cometh. 



Enter Judas, — 
who hetrays surprise and confusion. 
Ju. Master, seeking thee. 



ACT I, SC. 2. 15 

Jesus. No, on another quest. But why then me ? 
Ju. Thou art in danger. Caiaphas, 't is said, 
Offers great sums for thy arrest. 

Jesus. Beware 
Lest thou be tempted. [ Turns to go. 

Ma. Thou wilt not yet go ? 
The night has scarce set in. With thicker dark 
Will lie less danger. 

Jesus. When the snare is set, 
The prey is taken more easily by night : 
The shadows that help hide him from pursuit 
Conceal too his pursuers. When I fall 
Into the pit the proud man digs for me, 
Haply 't will be by night. 

John. Yet, lord, remain, — 
If not till mom, yet till the streets be thinn'd, — 
As Mary prays. For our sakes, master. 

Si. No. 
The moon is not yet risen : deeper dark 
Is now than will be. Why should Jesus fear ? 
Are we not vf\t\\ him ? And my ann is strong. 
Jesus. Simon, be not too confident. Boast not, 
Lest thy scant doing bring thy swollen talk 
Into derision. Is 't the Almighty's will. 
Hundreds shall not surprise me ; if my fate 
Points to destruction, one will be enough. 
Mary, fear not for me ; and for thyself. 
Remember what I warn'd thee. \_Leatcs with John and Simon. 
Ju. What was that ? 



16 THE NEW CALVARY 



Ma. How can I speak it ? Didst thou truly come, 

Seeking him only ? 

Ju. No : thou mayst be sure 

Not his the image was before my eyes, 

When my heart long'd for beauty ; and the locks, 

Whose flexile, fine-drawn gold weiglis more to me 

Than were it solid metal of like bulk 

Stor'd in the Temple, shadow not his brow. 

Was that his meaning ? What is it to him ? 

Turn his own thoughts that way ? 

Ma. On me 1 Tliou know'st 

That cannot be. 

Ju. I know it not. His eyes 

See everything. How should they fail to mark 

The largeness of thy beauty ? Is the red 

Now in thy cheek, — more dusky tlian are wont 

To bloom the roses love hath planted there 

Ma. 'T is the dim light — 

Ju. — Of that detested lamp, 

Which makes it dusky, but not makes the red. 

Is't not there summon'd by the thought of him, 

Admiring, haply loving, or to love ? 
Ma. Judas, I "will not listen, Where gatt'st thou 

Tlie right to so upbraid me ? And thou dost 

Grievously wrong the master. Were his heart 

Open to amorous passion, Martha sole 

Would fill its temj^le. But for me, alas, 

Stain' d and degraded 

Ju. Mary, do not weep, — 



ACT I. SO. 2. 17 

Though even thy tears make lioauty, even here 
Where the thin yellow flame reveals not more 
Tlian it conceals by shadows thy lov'd charms. 
But what did Jesus warn thee ? Thou art free ; 
I woo to wed thee, and would do so now, 
"Wouldst thou consent to it. 

3fa. That I never shall. 
I have been try'd, found wanting. Wouldst thou take 
Dishonor to thy anns ? 

Ju. Ay, ten times over, 
So it came tempting with those long I^lue eyes, 
Tender yet sad, and those full, mournful lips. 
Which heat my blood to madness. Do not fear : 
Tliough we be here alone, I am no brute. 

Nor yet a villain, though What meant he then, 

When the talk was of Caiaphas' reward. 

By bidding me beware ? He dares not think 

That I would sell him ? Much as I have cause 

To hate and to despise him 

3fa. Hate! Despise! 
Despise the master ? 

Ju. Why wilt thou persist 
To call him Master ; he is nowise leam'd ? 
Ma. Ay, in a lore the books teach not, and few 
• Have ever conn'd as he has. But thyself 
Dost so address him. 

Ju. When I speak him fair. 
So I would style him King, would that bring nigh 
The kingdom he hath promis'd. But its wealth. 



18 THE NEW CALVARY 



Like the false water o'er the heated sands 
Of the desert, mocks us. Toward it we speed 
To find it gone, a phantom of the air. 
Ma. Thou thirstest for the unreal. Not of him 
Comes the illusion. He hath often said 
His kingdom is unearthly. 

Ju. But, save John, 
Who of us men believes that senseless rant ? 
Doth Andrew ? Thomas ? James ? He sham'd me too 
Before his trusted ones, the girl-fac'd John 
And the raAV braggart, Simon. Why not keep 
His menaces for thee and me, if needed. 
For our sole ears ? 

Ma. Thou know'st it is his use 
To speak without reserve, at fitting time, 
All things of all men. 

Ju. No, he often clouds 
His talk with parables. At fitting time. 
All things are fit. Was this a fitting time 
To give us lessons ? thee, for aught I know, 
In continence, and me against the lust 
Of having, me whom ^vith the rest he keeps 
In beggarly indigence, wlicn, in little time, 
Would he not dally with the people's wish, 
Telling old saws of Heaven, which they list 
Only to laugh at, but assume their lead. 
As a brave man ought to, he might put us all 
In place and power, make Israel once more sing 
The song of triumph, hush'd now as the haqj 



ACT I, sc. a 19 

Of vainly-honord David, and for me 
Change gcralis into talents. Then shouldst tliou, 
Lov'dMary, have tliat place beseems thy charms, 
And thy lap till'd with shekels. 

Ma. Woi-tlilcss all, 
Though like thy gerahs they should turn to gold. 
Thou art too sordid, as our fathers were, 
Hankering for Egypt's fleshpots and the calf 
That shone with gold. 

Jit. They were a-hunger'd then : 
'Twas natural they should long for meat. The calf 
"Was their familiar worship. So himself 
Jesus will teach thee. Are we not both poor ? 
Look at that lamp. Wants not the brazier coals ? 

Thou hast not set before me aught to-night, 

And I am famish' d. Ilast thou not a crust? 

A drop of wine ? 

3Ta. I have no wine, scarce oil : 

The fire has not been Lit : I am not cold. 

Thou, closely cover' d, coming from the street, 

Canst not yet suffer : and my last of bread 

Was given to the master and the twain 

Who now were vnth. him. 

Ju. And for this, thy thanks 

Were a cold warnmg, seemingly of me, 

And, fill'd with liimself, he ciies to me, so poor, 

And who for thy sake, Mary, thine alone. 

Covet sufficient, as for thy sole sake 

I would I had all that Solonaon so lavish'd 



20 THE NEW CALVARY 



On that one perishable House, and thou, 

That thou hadst all was brought him by the Queen 

Of sunny Saba, — unto me he cries, 

Beware of avarice ! 

Ma. No, "Beware," he said, 
" Lest thou be tempted." 

Ju. Tempted to do what ? 
Dost thou believe me, Mary, then, so base, 
To sell men's lives for money 1 Say thou, quick. 
Say thou dost not so judge me ! 

Ma. Not for me 
To judge or to condemn thee. Have I not 
Myself had need of charital:>le thought, 
Receiv'd and learn'd its lesson ? Thou to me 
Seemest not evil, Judas ; but thy heart 
Is sway'd by passion, and tliy vehement will 
May plunge thee in a moment down some steep 
"Whereto thou runnest, seeing, not with eyes 
Which scan the depth wherefrom is no ascent. 
But the verge only, nor that over-well. 
Why shouldst thou hate the master ? how despise 
Him who is wise as Moses, more devout 
Than Samuel, and more blameless, and whose tongue 
Rings on the heart as not Esaias' did ? 
There has been none his like, sage, prophet, judge, 
From "the beginning" ^ to that godless time 
When the last prophet warn'd (but not like him) 
Four hundred years ago. 

Jti. And this tliou say'st. 



ACT I. SC. 2. 21 

This think'st ? Thou'it mad ! Thou lov'st him ! 

Ma. Love ? I do. 
Not with such love, I think, as tliou lov'st me : 
But if I did, he could not be to thee 
A rival or cause envy. Is he not 
The master ? Humbly I attend his feet, 
To catch his lessons, and to be with pride 
The handmaid of his servants. 

Ja. Glad to part 
Tliy last cnist with the menials and jjour out 
Thy scanty log of wine. 

Ma. My crust, my wine ? 
I would I had provision, for his sake, 
Ample as Solomon's.^ 

Ju. Why not wish as well 
A realm as wide ? 

Ma. From Tiphsah even to Azzah. 
Ay, 't were not broad enough for his desert, 
Which one day may fill half the expanded world ; 
And I would make him ruler over all. 
Ju. Thou'it drive me mad. — But give him what thou wilt. 
Thou shalt not suffer hunger, tliirst, nor cold. [Leaves. 
Ma. [calling after him. 

Judas, I want not. [ The door closes. 

Gone ! And in such mood ! 
I needed not the warning. With that ire 
Blackening his handsome visage, Ilaman's own 
Were not more hateful, and the bloody hands 
Of Joab might sooner stretch to my embrace. 



22 THE NEW CALVARY 



Act the Second 

Scene I. Tlie Valley of Hinnom. 

Jesus haranguing the rmdtitude. 

Near Mm, Simon, John, and others of the Tioehe. 

Also near Mm, lut on the outer edge 

of the semicircle of feofle, Nic- 

ODEMTJS and Joseph of Ramathaim. Farther off, a Scribe. 

Jesus. So Moses taught ? Your Moses tauglit you lore 
After the fables of the priests of On.^ 
Witness the death-fniit and the serpent's guile, 
And the man molded, as the sculptor molds, 
Out of the plastic clay. — " 

One of Peojy. Hear ! he blasphemes. 

Jesus. No, he blasphemes who, having inward sight, 
Forgets his consciousness. I forget it not, 
Nor level to the abasement of the fool. 
The juggler, or the palsied of resolve 
Who says and unsays, shaking with the breath 
Of his own purposes, that dread First Cause 
Wliose name not one of us is fit to name. 
Even if he knew it. Moses knew it not. 
Not as ye know it. He was not so bred 



ACT II. SC. 1. 23 

To utter it, till he was call'd [A burst of indignation 

on tlie part of tlie "people. 
Nic. Nay, hush ; 
lie tells you what the Book says. Moses ask'd 
Wliat God Himself reveal'd.' 

' Jesus. "What Moses said 
Was so reveal' d, — if Moses did so say. 
Ye know not that he did. Nay, hear me out. 
Not I malign your teacher, that great man, 
The God-inspir'd, to whom ye owe it this day 
Ye are not idolaters, though Egyjjt's filth 
Still clung to liis garments and from Aaron's skirts 
Was not shook off, and its vain tinsel' d pomp 
Long deck'd your sanctuary, where between 
The expanded wings, thence borrow' d, sat, 't was said, 
That Awful One, whose majesty nor house. 
Nor temple, nor grove, nor lofty^ mountain-top. 
Nor the thick clouds, nor the upheaving sea, 
Can anywise contain. — 

Another of Peop. What ! Nazarene ! 
Dar'st thou gainsay what God liimself ordain'd ? 
Jesus. Where ? In the burning bush ? Upon the Mount, 
'jVIid thunder and with lightning and in clouds, 
Wlien the hill trembled and the trumpet blar'd ? 
Hast thou not heard what hoar Elijah saw, 
Wlien, after fasting, on the Mount of God 
He stood expectant ? And behold ! there rose 
A strong wind, and the mountain's heart was shook 
And the rocks bow'd their foreheads. But the Lord 



24 THE NEW CALVARY 



Was not in tlie wind. And when the wind had jjass'd 

An earthquake heav'd, that rent the mountain's frame 

And its libs clave asunder. But the Lord 

Was not in tlie earthquake. Then there rag'd a fire. 

Still, the flames held Him not. At last there breath'd 

A soft, small voice : and lo, the Tishbite drew 

His mantle o'er his face. That soft, small voice 

Spoke in the prophet's soul. 'T will speak to you, 

If ye will hear it : in a thousand tones 

'T would speak to you, but your hearts' ears are stuff' d 

And cannot listen. 

One of Peop. Why reproach us then 
That they hear not ? 

Jesus. Thou fool ! Jehovah comes 
Not to the idle and besotted. Seek, 
And ye shall find Him ; knock, and unto you 
It shall be open'cl ; not in temples, not 
Before the altar. But in your own homes, 
In darkness and in loneness, by your beds. 
Where no man heareth and the eye sees not, 
There pray unto the Father, for that light 
That shall make plam your pathway, for that voice 
That shall encourage, warn, console you, pray 
That the small plant of virtue in your souls. 
Not wholly wither' d, may grow up and spread. 
And by its very shadow make to droop 
The undergrowth of vices, hideous weeds, 
Which suck their strength from and exhaust the soil 
That should make thrive the true tree. 



ACT II. sc. 1. 25 

Peop. Not so pray'd 
Our fathers. 

Jesus. No. They knew not to adore 
The Unutterable ^ Ilim whose voice no man 
Hath ever heard, no man will ever hear, 
Save in the tonguoless echoes of the heart. 
Or in the tones of Nature. 

Peop. Speaks it then 
In thee ? 

Jesus. Ay, in my heart wliile thus I teach. 
And in the unlock' d hearts of all good men 
Among ye who would seek to know the truth. 
And -who ])ewail the ignorance and lusts 
That tie you down to the earth, whereby no more 
Your hearts' eai-s listen. 

Peop. Sayst thou ? Wliat made thee 
To be erect, us creatures of the field ? 
Art thou more man than we ? Thou look'st it not. 
Jesus. But am, in that I trample on the lusts. 
Or strive to, which ye set upon your necks. 
More sla\dsh in their yoke than is the ox 
Before the ploughshare. Yet, ye are not brutes : 
No, ye wear clothing, and your garments hide 
Your vices, or ye think so, as your sores ; 
But on your faces, in your cheeks, your eyes, 
Tliere God has stamp'd obsceneness, God who gave 
Your appetites for use. But ye have set 
Your senses up as idols, and your acts 
Would shame the very dogs you call obscene. 
Vol. Vr.— 2 



26 THE NEW CALVARY 



Hence your corrupted visages. And thus 
Hath David, who too serv'd liis passions, sung, 
When Thou with cJiastisement rebuFsi man's sin. 
Thou mak'st his heauiy to consume away 
As doth a moth. King David was of men 
Comely among the comeliest, but he paid 
Tlie i^enalty of his subjected soul 
And overmastering body. So do ye. 
The rot of your corruption makes a stain 
Your garments cannot hide and gives disgust 
Even to your fellows, liideous as yourselves. 

Peoja. Is this for us to hear ? Wilt thou revile 
Our wives too ? What be they ? 

Jesus. Like you, whose gods 
Are your own entrails and your secrets. 

Peop. Out ! 
Out on the Gentile ! He is none of us. 

Another. Stain unto Nazareth ! thou pretend to teach, 
Who art thyself a pagan ? 

Jesus. Look around. 
Was not here Topheth ? Is not this the vale 
CaU'd of the sons of Hinnom ? where your sires 
Saw o'er the flames their infants lightly pass'd 
By votaries of Moloch ? Why not build 
An altar here to Chemosh, Baal-Peor ? 
The Israelites in Chittim saw not worse 
When Zimri and his Midian harlot fell, 
Pierc'd thi'ough the belly by the wrath devout 
Of Eleazar's son,' nor worse, more late 



ACT IT. SC. 1. 27 

A thousand years, the caj^tive prophet saw 

In visions of the Lord, ^vhen by the hair 

He was lifted up between the Heavens and earth 

From Chcbar's bank, and set before the gate 

That looketh toward the north, of God's own house, 

There in Jerusalem.'" The Egyptian wives, 

The Babylonians whom ye scorn, did not, 

Between the setting and the rising sun. 

Worse acts than ye do. O adulterous women ! 

O men as faithless ! saw ye each the other, 

As I behold you, God-mark'd, ye would cry 

Unto the caverns " Hide us ! " and the wolves 

" Let us be your companions ! " 

Peo]j. 'T is enough : 
Let him speak nothhig further. 

Nic. Nay, hear all. 
How can it harm ye ? Speaks he sooth, his words 
May be your medicine, though they relish not : 
LE false, they pass you as the murmuring wind. 
Less sharp than that now blowing, and through which 
Ye are come to hear him. 

Peop. And to stay to hear. 
Will he not make us heathen, which we are not. 
Jesus. Yea, 't is your nature. To subdue the heart, 
To bend the knees of the si^Lrit, and uplift 
The prayerful hands of the soul is too great pain : 
To see what takes the sense, to ofEer up 
What costs you but the value of the gift. 
To make up your account with Heaven above 



28 THE NEW CALVARY 



As with your creditors on earth, behold 

Your daily, only worship. How remov'd 

Is this from heathen usage ? Think ye then, 

It matters in what form or by what name 

You adore the Godhead, so it be in jjrayer 

Lowly, heart-felt and penitent ? It is 

As ye conceive Him ; for to know Him else, 

To know Him as He is, not you, nor I, 

Nor any that did ever or shall live 

In the whole world will e'er achieve. Adore 

"With humbleness, adore with thankful heart, 

Adore with penitence, adore with loss 

Of self and self denying ; that is good : 

And whether it be the sun that gives ye warmth. 

Which comes of Him, if ye will be so blind 

As to believe it is Himself that shines. 

Or some misshapen object, can ye be 

So dull as think the source whence beauty flows ' 

As well as goodness can indeed be such, 

It is all one. — Peace ! but a little more. 

Think not observances make mortals holy. 

Or that mere rites atone repeated sin. 

When from their feet your fathers shook the dust 

Of Gossen," robbing, if indeed they robb'd, 

So meanly those who unsuspecting lent 

Their kindly jewels, and committing murder, 

Did they commit it, when besmear'd with blood 

Their own door-posts were jjass'd, Avhile from the gates 

Of the Nilotic dwellings came the wail 



ACT II. SC. 1. 29 

Of women o'er theii' children foully slain 

Peop. Blasphemer ! Do\vii with him ! Let him speak no more. 
It was the hand of God. ' 

Jesxis. So dare ye say. 
Could the Life-Giver order life destroy'd ? 
"Would the All-Just upon the innocent child 
Visit its parents' trespass, or make wade 
Up to liis ankles in the first-born's blood 
His stainless messenger ? " 'T is ye blaspheme, 
Jehovah never sanction'd even tlie least 
Of all your monstrous actions. Such ye dare 
Not only boast to have done at his behest, — 
TMiereljy your prophets' and your jisalmists' books 
Smell of the stench of slaughter and are blurr'd 
By fraud and treachery chanted as great deeds, — 
But make the very angels at his l)id 
To have done to aid ye. Up, I say, ye came 
Over the sea to Chanaan, with you bringing, 
At least your leader, a religion pure, 
The secret worship of the Memphian priests, 
Not of the people ; and what did ye do ? 
What did your leader teach, — because he knew 
Not easily would your sensual lips be wean'd 
From the paps of your old usances ? Your priests 
Took ephods, and the mystic stone of Trutli " 
Glitter'd upon their breasts, your temples had, 
Unreck'd the prohibition from the Mount, 
Their Spliingian Cherubim, and brazen lamps 
Flam'd in the Holy Place, and there were cups 



30 THE NEW CALVARY 



For wine-libation, layers for the wash, 
And purifying waters, incense reek'd 
Frofii the horn'd altars, daily, mom and eve, 
And knives were busier with the victims' tlu-oats 
Than in the older time when Abram saw 
The smoking furnace and the burning torch 
Pass in his dream betwixt the sever' d parts 
Of the slain creatures," butcher'd unto Him 
Wlao asks not, nor will take, a grosser gift 
Than the self-stricken heart. More senseless still, 
And more profane, ye put the seal of God 
On the old custom in Rameses taught. 
And mutilated glorify' d a rite 
Your conquerors laugh at. " 

Peop. Down with him at once 1 
Down with the pagan ! 

Scrihe. Let him rant no more. 
Stone, stone him ! 

Nic. Will ye ? What ! for being free ? 
Are ye so gorg'd with liberty, ye seek 
To fetter thought, to put a servant's chain 
Ujion the outspoken tongue ? Shame on ye aU 1 
Bethink ye, were you right, as you are not, 
Who sits now in your Judgment. Have a care : 
The Roman arm is long. 

Peop. Then bid him cease. 
He hath spoken over mucli. 

Nic. He waves his liand. 
Let him conclude. 



ACT II. SC. 1. 31 

Jesus. If yc would put the knife 
To the protruding vices of the lieart, 
Lop off to God one sin of all the mass, 

Though even then enough of ill were left 

Bsop. Ah, ah, be silent. This our king ! Away ! 
Another. We have respect for the Elder, not for him. 
Away with liim ! 

J(jsus. O Jerusalem — 

Peoj). Away ! 
Jesus. — Thou who the prophets stonest, and to death 
Givest the wise God sends thee, with what love 
"Would I thy children gather 'neath my wings 
As the hen doth her brood ! But thou vnlt not. 

[ The multitude make angry demonsti'ationa, 
some even tahing up stones. 

NicoDEMUs and Joseph lyut themselves^ 

^former icith loldness, the latter timidly, hefore 

Jesus and wave them had: Jesus is led off 

Tyy his Disciples ; and the People disperse tumultuously. 



32 THE NEW CALVARY 



Scene n. 

Before the Procurator's Palace. 

Pontius. Caiaphas. 

Pon. Camilla reads your books. I have heard her tell, 
A man who on the Sabbath gather' d sticks 
Was by your leader Moses' order stoh'd. 
Can that be so ? 

Cai. It is so wiitten. 

Pon. Then, 
How the two sons of Aaron, the High-priest, 
Were wrapp'd in flames because their censers held 
A fire that was not hallow' d. Stands that so ? 

Cai. 'T is so set down. 

Pon. And dost thou lend it faith ? 

Cai. Such is my duty. 

Pon. Lo then what thou mak'st 
Thy God to be, or Avhat thou sufferest still 
Thy peo2)le to believe Him ! Canst thou name 
A worshiiJ that is bloodier, as there are 
No annals more atrocious than your own ? 
And with such faith, with records that make pale, 
Where they astound not, by their huge excess 
Of rational puuition, or arouse 



ACT 11, SC. 2. 33 

Doubts of their verity, or provoke a laugh 
At the Avild antics of a senseless code 
That satiri/.es justice, — on such faitli, 
And boasting such misdeeds — 

Cni. I boast them not. 
Pon. Your bloody amials do. — Thou'dst bring to death 
This Jesus ( lo the exemplar to your text 
Of heavenly mandate I ) who would teach your race 
A wholesomer belief. His Jove is one 
Of mercy and love, forbearing, full of peace ; 
Yours, Moses' god, who sits behind the vail, 
Invisible between the outspread wings, 
A sanguinary tyrant, to whose heart 
"War is a pastime, and v/ho makes not more, 
If we believe his servants, than one meal 
Of thrice a thousand men. '^ 

Cni. It grieves me much 
Thou'lt speak in so light wise on such a theme. 
■ Were it worth arguing, v>'ell might I oppose 
Rome's patron godhead, and Bellona's priests 
Smear'd with the Ijlood of their own bodies shed 
By self -incision, or your All-Good Jove, 
To whom Busiris sacrific'cl his guests. 
Till mad Alcides, bloodier than he, 
Bound him in turn to his own altar. 

Pon. Vain 
Your parallel and misplac'd. Alcides mates 
Your Danite Samson, passion's slave like him. 
And like him fabulous. Put all your gods, 



34 THE NEW CALVARY 



From the Suu, first of worships, to the last 
And least of all, the monstrous lirood that swarm 
In Coptiau temples, bastards of that land 
( Or spawn'd of its procreant river-slime) whose faith 
Enfolds all nature, — put them in one group, 
Give them three heads, or make their necks uphold 
The bull's fierce image or the kindly dog's, 
Let them lap human gore, or feed tliem milk, 
Wliich is comelier sacrifice, shake their fabled names 
Together in one uni, I 'd thrust my hand 
Amid the immortal lot, and which came out 
Foremost should serve as type of all the rest, 
Emblems of that First Cause which I, as thou, 
Believe but understand not, and whose form, 
And attributes, and name, of needs must come 
Out of the molding of the human brain, 
Which nothing fashions but f-i'om what it sees. 
Cai. So this fanatic teaches. 

Pan. Doth he so ? 
Wliy so Camilla vouches. Then his creed 
Will make you humbler, wiser, better men. 
Wliat wouldst thou with it ? Wouldst thou have the 

man 
Forswear his thoughts ? I would not give up mine, 
No, not to be Rome's emperor. 

Cai. 'T is well, 
Wliile they are thine ; but put them on the tongue, 
The Emperor may stop them. Lo tliou all 
I ask for this demoniac. Will he keep 



ACT II. sc. 2. 35 

His thoughts in tlioir own chambers, not the vaU 
Of the most lioly place shall he to me 
More sacred, nor the awful ark itself 
Shield better from ol)struction. 'T is their sj^read, 
AVing'd by the common air, to take deep root 
And sprout in thousand places, tliis alone 
That unto me, the head of those who plant 
And prune Jehovah's vineyard, makes them count 
More tlian the empty I)recze that bears them round. 
Pon. But doth the vineyard suffer from the weeds, 

Tliou may'st their root-stocks pluck up one by one ; 
Thou canst not stop the unfettered air from J^eai-ing 
The fl^dng seecUets. Let the man rave on. 
Ten thousand of his clamors will not blight 
One vine of all your faith. 'T is no small thing 
To choke up superstition. This attest 
Your patriarchs, priests and prophets, judges, kings, 
Psalmists and proverb-men, fi-om Moses do^-n 
To the last seer that threatened and that howl'd. 
Canst thou with one man's carcase dam the tide 
^ Of the eternal sea ? Through countless years 
The customs of your faith liave plung'd their roots 
Deeper and deeper m your people's heart. 
Wliat shall upheave them ? What may overgrow 
Their rank luxuriance ? The tumultuous voice 
Of one mean Nazarite ? the fungus shoot 
Of casual eloquence ? Not did he blow 
A daily tempest ; not were every seed 
He scatter'd to spring up a thousand fold. 



36 THE NEW CALVARY 



Where superstition once lias taken root, 

The plants of reason, truth, and common sense, 

Share but by patches here and there tlie soil. 

Cai. If that were all, your sower-seer might blare 
Till his cheeks burst and every grain were spent 
Out of his spiritual seed-bag. There is more. — 

Pon. Ay, I have heard. He levels at your place. 
The sharp truths of his tenets bore like moles 
Under your vincplots, or like battering-rams 
Butt as a hundred men against your walls. 
Shake not ; your hierarchy ■will not fall 
While bigotry and pride of race uphold 
The old foundation, and the breastplate shines, 
And purple, gold, and scarlet make your robes 
An eye-joy to the crowd, who, as with us, 
Find in this pomp, and in the censer's smoke, 
And butcher' d and Ijurnt victims, and the rites 
Which, mystical to them, they must not sl)are, 
Something that wraps the senses and wakes awe 
Of the unknown supei'nal, and the more 
That they are hred to it, almost from the hour 
Tliey cast their swaddlingcloths. 

Cai. Thou wilt not list. 
I might complain that Pontius scants thereby 
My due of courtesy, who not keep him here. 
In the chill air, to vaunt my nation's forms, 
Or set the God of Sinai o'er his own. 
The dwellers in Olympus. If the mole 
Burrows my vineyard, it concerns thee not : 



ACT II. SC. 3. 37 

liut if the ram is swung against the wall 

Of Roman mastery, 't is the Roman's heed 

To sec the iron head smash not the stones 

Or the shook wall bulge inward. Through the breach 

This Jesus strides to conquest. 

Poll. Over what ? 
Are we a handful ? or your Jews a race 
Of arm'd Goliatlis ? 

Cai. Da\'id was a youth, 
A sling his weapon ; yet the giant fell. 
This Jesus, thou hast heard, his rabble make 
To be a distant offslioot from the stem 
Of Jesse's royal son. No doubt, a tale 
Made for a purjjose : Ijut that jjurpose, what ? 
In the crowd met to hear him in the vale, 
And only now disjjers'd, was one that cry'd, 
Flouting him, " This our King ! " The scoff had faU'd, 
Had not the crown been talk'd of, or in thought. 

Pon. To think and make are different, — more apart 
Than brain and body, hj whose action each 
Is separately determin'd. Not mere thought » 
"Will batter-in the wall ; or, if it do, 
I'll pitch him o'er the battlements more quick 
Than by the breach he entcr'd. Edepol ! 
It were brave sport to see my men with clubs 
Scatter the whole vain mummery, as thou wott'st 
They did witli the water-bubble, when your Jews 
Grudg'd the Jove's tribute taken for their good." 

Cai. But why desire the tumult ? when for kings, 



38 THE NEW CALVARY 



Crown'd or discrown' d, 't is apt to call in play 

Weapons of more than wood, and blood may swell 

The basis of thy bubble. It were best 

It did not rise at all ; for treasure spent 

And men's lives squander'd make such inward strife 

Costly amusement, be it the revolt 

Of misproud Absalom or the steep down-fall 

Of madden' d Saul. 

Pon. In short, — for likes me not 
The chance of popular tumult more than thee, — 
What wouldst thou do ? Camilla vows the man 
Is innocent of wrong intent. If so, 
I have said he shall not suffer. 

Gai. Grant it so. 
What then ? he is centre of a sect whose aim 
Would overthrow the priesthood, in the dust 
Of the demolish' d temple rear the fane 
Of a new godhead, and upon the throne 
Of fallen Judah seat the promis'd Prince 
Our race stiU look for. Patience yet awhile. 
I say not they can do it, nor forget 
How every like attempt against Rome's power 
Has been the swelling of a winter's stream 
Which floods the land awhile, then soon subsides, 
Shrinks in its channel and with summer's heat 
Shows scarce a brook. Yet the stream swells not less. 
What would I do ? This : buUd the low banks up 
Before the rise, or stop it at the sluice. , 

Pon. In other words ? 



ACT II. SC. 2. 39 

Cai. Arrest, with thy pcnnit 
This mischief-maker, cut the main stream off 
Which swells the flood of popular discontent 
And makes it dangerous. 

Pan. Will it then subside ? 
WiU not thy dykes and dams swell for the time 
Tlie tossing waters ? If the mass desire 
This Nazarenc, his violent taking-off 
Or even restraint may lift the pent-up flood 
To sudden ovci-flow. IMyself, I reck 
The danger little ; on our beetling rocks 
These surges dash in vain ; the f I'othing tide 
Washes your laud alone. 

Cai. There is a change 
Come o'er the mass. The man's o'erboiling zeal 
Has carry'd him from his vf?tx against the rich, 
Which flattered their despite, to fierce assaults 
On their own vices and the bestial l)onds 
( So dares he term them ) of the ancestral faith 
He strains to overthrow. This very day 
They were about to stone him. 

Pan. Let them so. 
'T will save us trouble. 

Cai. But, the morrow come, 
TTiQ wind eits otherwise, and their hands may lift 
A diadem. If their hearts be angcr'd still 
And cry for his conviction, will thy grace 
Not step in to prevent it ? 

Pon. "WTiat they will, 



40 THE NEW CALVAKY 



In what concerns them solely, let them do. 
What is 't to me, so Rome he not aggriev'd ? 
Cat. Thanks. I salute thee, Pontius. 

Pon. Be thou well. 



Scene III. 
The abode of Jesus. Evening. 
Jesus. Nicodemus entering. 

Jesus. Unto my humble home what brings the Elder ? 

Nic. A twofold motive. As the hind, 't is sung, 
Pants for the brook, so is my soul athirst 
For knowledge, and I come to drink it pure 
At the fountain built in thee, and would preseiTe 
From violence the basin's rim. 

Jesus. Thou art kind. 
I owe thee already for thy timely aid ; 
Perhaps for life. 

Nic. Dost thou esteem it such ? 
Why make it needful ? While thou didst inveigh 
Against the moral stench which makes our class, 



ACT ir. sc. 3. 

FuU of corrupting sores of vice and pride, 
Loathsome as Lazarus, in tliy proverb, crouching 
Crumb-fed and hound-lick\l, thou wast safe; the poor 
Ilemm'd thee around applausive : now thou turn'st 
Thy mirror on themselves, they take up stones 
To dent its surface, nor would feel regret 
Did tliey crush botli together. 

Jesus. Wouldst thou then 
That I should wear two faces ? have one hand 
Rais'd to chastise the Pharisee and Scribe, 
While with the other strokiug-down tlie shag 
Of the crouch'd multitude ? So 't were best^indeed, 
Must I use both diversely ; but between 
The vice and beastly habits of all ranks. 
Those moral sores thou speakcst of, whose stench - 
Makes the soul sicken and shrink back dismay'd 
As from the scurf'd leper, is tliere nought distmct, 
Save that one sits in purple and deep-fiing'd, 
While through the rags of Lazarus peer out 
Tlie scabs all pomt at. 

Nlc. Yet, treat both alike, 
The puqiled glutton and the Ijeggar fed 
With refuse and scurf-blotch'd, where wilt thou stand ? 
The rich are not thy friends, wiU never be : 
Must the poor hate thee too ? as men stiU hate 
The eyes that pierce them through, the tongue that dares 
Spit at their self-love, which is foremost still, 
Exacts the damtiest handling, and stoops not, 
Saving to be caress'd. Not thus thou 'It reach 



41 



42 THE NEW CALVARY 



The crown men say thou aim'st at. 

Jesus. Dost thou lend, 
Thou, credence to such tale ? 

Nic. Not if thou sayst 
It has no truth. 

Jesus. I say it, and with thought. 
I would not be their king, not might I be 
With safety to themselves, not did the bird 
Of Rome her vast wings fold about my head, 
Defending and caressing, not would Rome 
Herself step back and ]:)id our race be free. 
Nie. "Wliy not, when so 't were better ? 

Jesus. I am here 
To teach, not rule. To govern, must I cease 
To teach ; and 't is the Preacher's rod they need 
More than his father's sceptre. 

Nic. Thou sayst well. 
Perverse and self- opinion' d, sensual, false, 
Bloody and contumacious, were they left 
To choose their king to-morrow, ere the night 
They 'd come to blows, and, into factions split, 
Set up another. Mutinous and ingrate. 
Slaves to ol^servance, chain' d by priestly rule 
To superstition's galley, where the oars 
Are ignorance and the rusty iron prow 
Points but one way, while drifts the clumsy keel 
Rudderless through a tideless sea more dead 
Than that of Sodom, as they were at first 
When the strong shepherd crafty drave the flock. 



ACT II. SC. 3. 43 

straggling and looking backward, past the Mount, 

Up from regretted Gossen, such, alas, 

Tliey will be ever, till shall pass away 

Their shadow as a nation, and, dispers'd, 

Mix'd with, but not of, populous Gentile tribes, 

Tliey lose their power of mischief, dwindling down, 

Despis'd, down-trodden, yet opinion'd still, 

Unfit to be a nation, but still fit 

To bear mean burdens, toilers in the ditch 

And mortar-pits, as when scourge-driven to build 

Strong Peitho and Ramcssa. Seest thou, I 

Am too a prophet, when the bitter heart 

Prompts to forebodements. 

Jesus. Wliich are merely true. 
Yet thou art of this sinful race. 

Nie. And thou. 
And was not Solomon ? and thy namesake, he, 
Sirach's wise son, whose lessons are more worth 
Than all the Prophets ? 

Jesus. Ay, so Jordan flows 
Through GalUee's sweet sea, across the plain 
And desert, to the Salt Sea, joining both. 
Even Sodom had one man who might be sav'd, 
Though he did, after, evil. "Were thy class. 
Even in the Sanhedrim, just and bold like thee, 
Or virtuous as thy gentler, low-voic'd friend, 
Joseph of Ramatha'im, I should turn 
My hands to labor : Israel then were pure 
As Abram was at Mamre, ere he sought 



44 THE NEW CALVARY 



Ur of Chaldea, and from Haran went 
To gather from Mizra'im's '* priests the rite 
(If that indeed he practised it, and not 
'T is so pretended, that we may not seem 
To have taken it from that greater land whose race 
We mix'd and were confounded with, to whom 
We were perhaps enslav'd four hundred years — 
Such is the count ) the rite whose practice scoffs 
At nature and whose precept blasphemes God. 
Nlc. Rabbi, that utterance gives me no despite ; 
But to the mass, which ponders not, but hugs 
To its breast its ugly errors, and makes blind faith 
Respond for ignorance, what else could it sound 
But insult and defiance ? Could thy light 
Pierce through the crannies of their darken'd brain, 
Whose doors and windows bigotry has Ijarr'd, 
Well might'st thou wave in Heaven's name the torch 
Of truth before them ; but they dash it out, 
Or turn it back on the arm that bears it. 

Jems. True : 
And %i me thank thee. But 't is hard to hide 
The fire which ceaseless burns and is too large 
For prudence' screen to cover. To do good, 
We must not stop to think if it will grow. 
We strow the seed : some falls on ban-en ground, 
Some the fowls gather, some the tares will choke. 
Could I from Sodom save one man and his. 
Though one of them should turn back and be whelm' d 
By the down-pouring molten stone, or rain 



ACT II. sc. 3. 45 

Of burning ashes, and two more but live 
To do most foully, I sliould lead liim up, 
Him and his harlot daughters unto Zoar, 
Nor heed the cinders and the redhot stones 
That hurtled after. 

Mc. But when Lot himself 
Refuseth rescue, and Gomorra laughs 
At the vain prophecy, seeing not the fire 
Yet in the mountains' bowels ? — But no more : 
With thee I could talk until the middle watch 
On themes like these, whereon thy wisdom flows 
A stanchless fountain such as I have said 
My soul has thirst for. :[.et me haste to say, 
Thou art in imminent danger. As I came, 
I saw the High-priest holding earnest talk 
"With the stern Procurator. Hast thou heard 
He hath offer'd large rewards to have thee taken, 
So it be done in privity without noise ? 
Jesus. I have. 

Mc. I couple this and that, and see 
The thunder gathering o'er thee. Get thee hence, 
Before it lightens. 

Jesus. Wliither? 

A7t'. Anywhere, 
Wliere the sky lowers not : to Galilee ; 
To Mestre " ; further, if thou list : I will 
So thou wilt let me, furnish means. But go ; 
Forthwith. 

Jesus. Thou art brave and good. I am at my post 



46 THE NEW CALVARY 



Wouldat thou have me desert it ? 

Nie. "VVlien no more 
Thou canst defend it ? when to foes without 
Traitors within are added, and the gates 
Thou think' st to guard are open set behind thee, 
And the ground trembles both ways with the tread 
Of the encountering masses, which wUl join, 
While thou goest down between them, crushed and scom'd i 
This day, had Caiaphas foreseen the stonn 
That darkened round thee, thou hadst been even then 
Seiz'd as evoking riot. 'T was his doubt 
The populace march'd wath thee. Now it turns 
And stops thy way, what wilt thou do ? 

Jesus. Abide 
The shock thou speak'st of, and fall crush'd and scomM. 
Nic. It is heroical : but is it wise ? 

Jesus. 'T is fit ; 
And that is everything. Why am I here ? 
When I can teach no more, no more may warn, 
'T is meet that I be render' d to that dust 
Wherefrom I sprung that from my punctur'd limbs 
The balm might drop and underneath my shade 
Life's wayworn gather. Haply, when my blood 
Shall fructify that dust, a plant of grace 
More precious than the balsam or the palm. 
May shoot up and become a mighty tree 
Beneath whose branches kingdoms shall take shelter, 
While everywhere its healing juice shall flow, 
Without incision, and enough for all. 



ACT II. sc. a 47 

Nic. It may be. 

Jesus. Nay, it \n\\ bo, if God will. 

iV7c. I meant it so. — Then, thou wilt here abide ? 

Jesus. Heaven willing, I shall here abide. 

Nic. Then be 
His unseen wings above thee. What on earth 
Man may avail to help thee, sliall be done ; 
Nor will my soul be feebler, that from thine 
It hath learn'd to set the fortitude of duty 
Higher than valor, and in submission find. 
Least questioning, nor conceiving of complaint, 
Where Heaven's decrees bear hardest, sweeter fume 
Than frankincense can yifeld and richer gift 
Than were a thousand rams. The peace of God 
Be with thee to the end. 

Jesus. And with thy spuit. 



48 THE NEW CALVARY 



Act the Third 

Scene I. As in Act I. Sc. II. 

Mary, seated at the lattice. 

Enter, opening the door timidly, Judas. 

He hears a small lantern, and a full panier, which 

after he has spoTcen, he sets down, 

and shuts the door. 

Ju. In darkness ? 

Ma. No ; the moon has given me light, 
More pleasant than thy lantern. And my lamp " 
Was wholly silent. 

Ju. I come in time then. 

3Ia. No; 
The night is too far in. "What hast thou there ? 
Ju. It is not late ; the first watch is scarce tlorough : 
I might have better welcome. But I bring 
on for the lamp, and bread, the whitest, best 
Thou hast long seen, wine, honey too, and dates, 
And fuel for the brazier. Reach thy lamp. 
Or no, thou fill it ; for my hands are numb. 
I '11 make thee up a fire. 

Ma. I want it not. 



ACT III. sc. 1. 49 

It is not cold. Wliat ails thee ? How thou tremblest 1 
Ju. The air is chilly out. Do fill the lamp. 
So. Let me light thee. 

Ma. Why, thy hand so shakes 
Thou scarce canst hold tlie lantern ! What is this ? 
Art thou not well ? 

Ju. Do let me make the fire. 
I shall be better then. I am so cold. 
And with the warmth and light, the dreary room 

Will look more cheerful. There — already see. 

Ah, blessed warmtli ! 

Ma. Yet thou art trembling still. 
ITo-w very pale thou art ! Wliere hast thou been ? 
Where didst thou get these things ? 

Ju. Pray set them out. 
When hast thou eaten, Mary ? 

Ma. Not this day. 
Jri. Ah, so I fear'd, from what thou saidst last night. 
Eat, Mary, love. The fire, the light make glad ; 
But it will glad me more to see thee eat. 
And take thou of the wine. Fill me a cup. 
I need it. 

Ma. Hast thou not had wine enough ? 
Something excites thee. 

Jti. It is not the wine. 
I would it was ! 

Ma. Thou wouldst it was ? 

Ju. I mean, 
The cause were clearer, and would sooner cease. 
Vol. VI.— 3 



50 THE NEW CALVARY 



Thou must not mind me. Let me see thee eat. 

Ma. What is the cause ? Where gatt'st thou then these things ? 

Ju. Thou dost not think I stole them ? 

Ma. No ; but where 
Gatt'st thou the means ? or whence hadst thou the gift ? 
Thou hadst, I know, no money. 

Ju. No, and all 
That little was left among us is nigh spent. 
I did not like to ask it even for thee. 
The Passover at hand. Thou art so free, ^ 
Thou robb'st thyself forever, and for those 
Wlio are scarce so poor as thou. Thou dost not eat. 

Ma. Thou wilt not answer. Where gatt'st thou the means ? 

Ju. Dost thou suspect me ? I am not a tliief ; 

No, nor What was that noise ? 

Ma. I heard no noise. 
Why look'st thou round thee ? What should make thee 
fear ? 

Ju. It is not fear. Give, Mary, of the wine. 

Ma. Thou hast drunk enough. And yet, thou art so pale 1 

Ju. It is the cold. 

Ma. It cannot be the cold ; 
Thy hands are o'er the brazier : or the cold 
Comes from within thee. Thou art either ill, 
Or hast that on the conscience which makes cold. 
Why dost thou keep thine eyes away, which late 
Forever sought out mine ? I am not chang'd. 
Dost thou no longer love me ? Dost thou doubt ? 

Ju. Doubt thee ? O Mary ! Love thee ? If thou bidst. 



ACT III. SC. 1. , 61 

I will thrust my hand in that fire, and hold it there 

Till the flesh blackens. There is nought so hard 

I would not do or suffer for thy sake. 
Jifa. It is but little that I ask. Say then, 

Where didst thou get thee money ? Hast thou more ? 
Ju. Have I more money ? Yes — yes, I have more. 

Eat : thou needst fear not : I shall have enough. 

Take of the bread and honey, or those dates. 

Let me but see thee eat. 'T -will warm me more 

Than wine or fire-heat. When the morning dawns, 

I will get thee meat. 

Ma. But yet thou tell'st me not 

Whence came the means. I will not eat till then. 
Ju. But wilt thou then ? 

3Ia. So I be well couviiic'd 

'T was come at fairly. 

Ju. 'T was the willing gift 

Of — of — I ask'd it — of the master's friend, 

The Elder, Nicodemus, whom I met 

Coming at twilight fi'om the Rabbi's house. 
Ma. He ? from the master's house ? 

Ju. It is the truth. 

He was thou knowcst in the Vale to-day 

And sav'd liim from the angry crowd. 

Ma. I know. 

He is well worthy to be Jesus' friend. 

That gave thee not the right to ask him alms. 

It was at twilight. Where wast thou since then ? 
Ju. Since then — since — at the High-priest's house — I mean, 



62 , THE NEW CALVARY 



I stood at the gate, to gather 

Ma. Gather what ? 
What mak'st thou there at the lattice ? 

Ju. 'T is to see 
How far the moon is up. I must be gone. 
Ma. And yet thou saidst, but now, it was not late. 
What took thee to the High-priest's, if indeed 
Thou wast there ? 

Ju. Dost thou doubt me ? 

Ma. Can I else ? 
Thou dost so shuffle. Look me in the face. 
Thou canst not ! Judas, Judas ! by the love 
Thou hast vow'd me, I adjure thee : wast thou there ? 
Give me thy hand. It trembles, it is cold. 
Ju. I was there, Mary. 

Ma. Truly ? Wliat to do ? 
Take not thy hand away. Thou hadst been glad, 
Last night, to have me hold it. 

Ju. Not as now. 
Thou holdst it but to try me. Let it go. 
Last night, last night — I would it were to-night 
Even as last night, though I then was mad, 
All of thy love for Jesus : wo is me ! 
Let me go forth. Another time — perhaps 
To-morrow — I will ansAver. No, no, no ! 
To-morrow thou wilt need no answer. 

Ma. Ah? 
Thou 'It drive me also mad. What is there wrong ? 
What wouldst thou gather at the High-priest's gate ? 



A(;t iir. so, 1. 53 

«7w. News of the Rabbi's safety. I had heard — 
I have told thee — Caiaphas had offer'd late 
Largely to have him taken without noise 
Or danger of the i^eople. It was said 
The Sanhediim would meet to-night. I went 

After the Elder, following him in 

Ma. Thou saidst thou stood' st at the gate. 

Ju. I did. How should 
I enter in ? I know not what I say. 

Let me be gone. I 

Ma. Is the master sold ? 
Ju. How should I know ? 

Ma. Thou saidst thou went'st to learn. 
What didst thou learn ? Could any be so base 
To sell a man to his enemies ? to take 
Money for human blood ? Give both thy hands : 
I want to hold tliem. 

Ju. Mary, let me go. 
I am waited for. 

Ma. By whom ? — If such there be, 
'T were better for him were a millstone hung 
About his neck and he cast in the sea, 
The Sea of the Desert, to find there his like 
In Sodom and Gomorra. 

Ju. Better far ! 
Ma. What means that tone ? Tliou art weeping too !' And 
sobs ? 
It cannot Ije, that thou — 

Ju. Oh, let me go I 



54 THE NEW CALVARY 



Ma. I keeiJ thee not : thy hands are loose in mine. 
But how they tremble ! Thou a strong man too, 
And young as I, who am feeble and a woman ! 

It cannot be Who waiteth then for thee ? 

Ju. The — the Rabbi 

Ma. Waits for thee ? And where ? 
Ju. In the Garden of Gethsemane. 

3Ia. Alone ? 
Jit. No, with the brethren. I must not be miss'd. 
Ma. And thou goest there for prayer ? for lessons ? thou ? 
Turn not thy head away. It cannot be, 
That thou, who swear'st to such love for me, wouldst dare, 
Wouldst be so heartless, so insanely base, 

To dare to 

Ju. Oh! oh! oh! 

Ma. Is 't true then ? Say 

It is not true. But say thou hast not 

Ju. Wliat? 
Ma. I cannot name it. It is so foul wrong, 
■ A crime so monstrous, wickeder than liis 
Who slew his brother, wickeder than aught 
The world has known before, the very word 
Would crush thee. 

Ju. Would it might ! 

Ma. It is then true. 
God of our fathers ! thou hast sold his blood ! 
The innocent Rabbi's ! O, thou art accurs'd 
■ Before all men ! Begone ! Take with thee all 

Thou hast bought with thy blood-money. Not the lamp 



ACT III. SO. 1. 55 

Shall hold thy oil. Behold, I pour it out. 

These embers shtill not burn. Thou hcar'st them hiss 

Under the water-di-ops. It is the sound 

Of human execration in thy ears. 

Go ! to thy fate. Or no, I will go first 

To warn him, if it may be. Stay thou here 

Till I may reach him ; then, begone forever. 

Never will I speak word to tliee again. [Going. 

Ju. Mary ! a word ! Thou hast driven me akeady 

Ma. I drive thee ? It is false. Not jealous love, 

Not envy even, have given thy soul to Hell, 

But filthy avarice. 

Ju. It was then for thee. 

-I say thou hast driven me wild. Thou mayst do more. 

Wilt thou not pause ? I may undo my act. 
Ma. {qukldy.} Undo it? undo it? [Slowly. IJiVii is that pos- 
sible now ? 
Ju. I know not : I can try. If I can turn 

The slot-hounds from the scent, or lead them false, — 

If I do this, at peril of my life. 

Wilt thou forgive me ? hold me as of old ? 
Ma. Eorgivc thee ? Ay, — though thus thou wilt undo 

One treachery by another ; but no more 

Canst thou, to me or others, be the same. 

Seek thy peace there where I have sought for mine. 

Where is no anger and where mortal sins 

Are weigh' d with mortal frailty, and the heart 

Enters for judgment. But on earth, with me. 

Thou canst plead notliing. [Going. 



56 THE NEW CALVARY 



Ju. Hear me ! hear ! Not yet — 
Ma. I will hear nothing more. Do, undo, save, 
If save thou canst, the master ; but for him, 
For all of us, let thy face be, as to me. 
Now that I turn from it, in tlie mind alone, 
Forever. 

Ju. Speak'st thou, go'st thou, thus ? Then, go. 
Ungrateful and flint-hearted, thou hast spoken 
My death-doom. Be niy blood upon thy head. 
Ma. 'T will di'op unnotic'd, for that other blood. 

The innocent blood, which, flooding all my heart. 

Will make thine be forgotten, save as shed 

In expiation. Art thou man enough, 

Thou wilt thyself so punish. But no, no ! 

No ! do it not ! 'T were better thou shouldst live 

And know remorse. And God thy spirit bring 

To full repentance. 

Ju. Gone ! Forever gone ! 
The last sounds of the voice that was to me 
At all times music, the light-echoing feet 
Wliich my heart told from thousands, have pass'd now, 
And the world lies before me like this room, 
Dusky and desolate. She is gone to him. 
For liim. I might have sav'd him ; and I try'd 
To tell her, but she would not hear, not yet 
The blood-price is paid over, and the part 
Given in earnest of the accursed pact 
Might easily be repaid. Her heart was full. 
Full of him only. Let him meet his fate. 



ACT III. sc. 1. 57 

'T is but a little sooner tlian would come 
Of his own madness. Is it too so sure 
To be a deutli-fate ? Power to put out life 
Is goue from the Sanhedrim, and Pontius' wiU 
Eschews all useless cruelty. Be it so : 
I would not liarm him ; and my pay is eam'd 
When the hunt finds its quarry. 'T is his fault, 
Who might have rul'd as king and made us rich, 
Who has robb'd me too of Mary's love, 't is his, 
And hers, not mine, that I am made thus base. 
And should he die, should I be scoru'd, what tlien ? 
Our fate is equal, and thou then shalt see, 
Ungrateful, if I am enough a man. 
3* 



58 THE NEW CALVAEY 



Scene IT. 

Night. — The Oarden of Oethscmane. 

Jesus, 
with John, Suion, and others of his disciples. 

Jesus. Hear ye again. The sacrifice of God 
Is tlie bruis'd, broken, and repentant heart. 
And this because grief i^urifies the heart. 
For what we suffer is suffer' d for our good, 
Not for His glory, which we can enhance 
No more than we can multiply the stars 
Or make more bright yon moon. But we can add 
To His contentment with His work in us, 
By purging off our passions, by clean lives 
In thought, in word, in action, such as fit 
The beings he made straight- visag'd, not as beasts 
Which gaze the earth. 

John. But, master, thou art pui-e. 

Jesus. Pure by long cleansing. With the flesh and Devil 
I have wrestled till the muscles of my soul 
Are hardened to the conflict. Wliat I am 
Yourselves may be, if so ye will but wash 
In the blood that is of the spiiit, and day and night 
Fight with temptation. 



ACT III. SO. 2. 59 

Si. Are we then as thou ? 
Jes^is. From the same potter's wheel. If tuni'd more thin, 
Guard ye the more that brittle vase, your soul. 
Remember, I am l)ut the humble son 
Of a poor joiner, train'd to do his work, 
Till, fiU'd by Heaven with longings for the task 
It had set before me, and for which I deem'd 
It had made me fit, I labor'd and grew strong 
In the great mystery which I teach to you. 
Yet men will strive, yourselves will haply strive, 
To accord wild proijhecies of what may not 
Ever have issue vdth wluit now has come 
And what shall come, will make me spring direct 
By a long line of names pick'd up at wall, 
.iViid of descents which never could be trac'd 
Even were they real, from Jesse's royal son, 
Humble as I at first, but on whose throne, 
Unsteady with men's l:)lood and hung with clouds, 
I would not sit though dragg'd to it. 

Si. Yet men say, 
Master, thou art God's son. 

Jesus. As ye are all 
In the great Psalmist's sense the sons of God. 
Who says it in another sense blasphemes. 
Wliat ! He who made the fix'd earth and the seas, 
The sun that moves around us, and the moon 
That takes his place sometimes by night, when stars 
Bum fewer in the heavens ( see ye now ), 
Beyond this vault above us He who rales, 



60 THE NEW CALVARY 



Whose vail no man hath lifted, and by whom 
Live all things that have being, Wlio was at first, 
When the Earth empty lay and without form, 
And Who shall be when darkness shall again 
Brood o'er the waters, He ! break through the bonds 
Himself hath put on nature, to create 

In a weak woman's bowels Let us pass 

The audacious fancy by. Its very sound 
Is blasphemy more heinous than the worst 
Our sires repaid with stoning. Yet a day 
Will come, when with the labor of a life 
A thousand books shall argue on this theme. 
Caught from the vaporings of a prophet's brain 
And jjoet's myth, the impossible monstrous form 
Of Asian fiction, and the insane idea 
Of minds aspiring to be great in phrase 
By superclimljing nature. This shall seize 
The subtlety of priestcraft for its own, 
And, with ostent of awe but inward laugh, 
Handing it to the popular belief, 
Fix it forever. For the vulgar mind 
Thinks rarely for itself and fears to unhasp 
The doors of mysteries which faith hath lock'd 
And flung away the key. Thus, see ye to it, 
After my death that none of your vain talk 
Go to confirm delusion."" 

Si. Could that be? 
Know we not, master, your four brothers, see 
Often your sisters. 



ACT III. SC. 2. 61 

Jesus. But when ye are gone, 
And they are gone, like me, where is no eiir, 
And whence comes no correction, tlien shall sj^rout 
Fables more thick than grapes on Sibmah's vines ; 
The dead shall bloom like Jericho's shrank rose, 
And without waterdrops ; the lame shall walk ; 
And they who wake from epileptic sleeps 
Shall find their tortured bodies give egress 
To pent-up devils. Nothing shall be held 
Too gross for maintenance where the popular faith 
Requu'es upholstering, and the cause of truth 
Shall \nt\i Truth's sophists justify a lie. 
Words shall be put in mouths that spake them not, 
And history be interpolated °' ; cries 
Of disbeliever, god-denier, put down 
The uprisen doubter ; and perhaps the cross, 
The sword, and fire, and desolating wars 
Cover with blood and ashes Thought's free work, 
Wliere grav'd too legible to be efPac'd. 
Tlien shall old failles be reviv'd, the rant 
Of rhapsody and the poet's swelling phrase 
Find literal meaning that bestaggers sense ; 
Men shall make God descend to do an act 
Needless and futile and against Himself,'*'' 
And bastardize me that I may not sin 
Against prediction. 

John. Master, what means that ? 
Jesus. Haply I speak what ye not imderstand. 
But men shall after you. When I shall die. 



62 THE NEW CALVARY 



( And I foretell ye that the end is near, ) 
Take heed ye set not down my torture's groan, 
The sweat of weakness and the bubljling blood 
Drawn by the deathsmen, as atonement made 
And destin'd for men's sins. There is none such. 
Each answers for his own. But in the count. 
He, who knows all things, will against the ill 
Set the temptation, set that fearful weight, 
The heaviest in the record, the black seed 
Sown in us ere our birth, whose growth no care 
Can root up wholly, and to overgrow 
Costs a life's toil, the watering by the heart 
And delving of the mind. 

John. But in the law, 
A goat is made to bear the general sin 
And led into the wilderness. , 

Jesus. To die. 
Food of the Jordan's lion. Thus that beast, 
The tyrant of the desert and the wold. 
Bloody, ferocious, butchers for the Lord 
The harmless victim, and subserves His priest ! 
So shall my murderers make my body's life 
Sin-offering to that Highest who might crush 
Ten thousand such by letting fall his hand. 
Wliy, Balaam's ass was wiser, and the boy. 
Tongue-tied, brain-wilder'd, whom his sorrowing kin 
Brought, hoping for my cure, who could, alas. 
But grieve with them, more heart-sick than were they 
Who were inur'd to the horror, why that poor boy 



ACT III. SC. 2. 63 



Was scarce more idiotic ! Think ye too, 

That ye blaspheme His justice. How should blood 

Of innocent victims wash out human guilt ? 

Believe it, if yourselves have thought of right, 

Have jjity, have understanding of some things, 

The Evcr-floAving Source of pity, and right. 

And infinite knowledge, the Pervading Fire, 

Of which our being is the least of sparks, 

Upshooting for an instant in the air. 

Then sunk to sight and sense, plays not such tricks 

As would shame mortal judges. ]\Ioses' act 

Was a formality ; "' but the after time 

Will make it parent of a thousand frauds, 

And priests sliall say to sinners, " Give of tliis: 

It shall redeem the soul here and in Hell 

From penal torment." Wo the day for me, 

For the pure faith I would infuse in men. 

Drawing it from my breast as mothers yield 

The milk of their dear bodies, wo that time, 

Wlien priests shall haply, taking of my blood, 

Siirinkle it on the altar for men's sins. 

And say, before the mercyseat of God, 

" This is alone atonement, and without 

Is no man justify' d. God condemns you all ; 

But he who was your scapegoat, on his head 

Aaron has laid both hands. Be sooth'd, be free : 

Through the thick amior of your iron faith 

Hell's javelins shall not pierce. But unto those 

Who stand not in the congregation, those 



64 THE NEW CALVARY 



For whom the sin-goat bleeds not, and the smoke 
Of incense, burn'd within tlie vail, clouds not 
The mercyseat with mystery ; " those who pray 
With their own lips, confess unto themselves 
Their daily sins, and 'neath the lampless cope 
Of tlieir unaltar'd dwellings, whei'e no vail 
Parts them from cherubim, or 'neath the stars, 
The grandest of all temple-roofs, make vows 
Of effort for amendment, unto these 
Comes no redemption, and their works save not 
From Satan and his angels." 

John. What is that 
Thou imply'st, dear master ? Look'st thou to an end 
So bloody and so near ? There floats no cloud 
Over thy destiny, and the people's love 
Again shall gather round thee with broad wings 
To comfort and defend. 

Jesus. Thou seest no cloud. 
But from the horizon of my troubled day 
Rise up before my vision, and spread, those signs 
The weather-wise may read portending storm. 
Heard'st thou what Judas said ? Lo, where the moon 
Shines with such clearness I may almost see 
The color of thine eyes, or note the crisp 
In Simon's beard : yet they who sleep this night 
Under its splendor may awake to find 
The blue vault blacken' d. What is that comes now ? 



ACT III. sc. 2. G5 

Enter, hurriedly, Mary Magdalena. 

Ma. IMastcr, O master, fly ! fly for clear life ! 
Judas has sold thee. {^sohs. 

Jesus. So I fear'd. — Sccst thou ? [to John. 
The %\'iiid has risen. 

John. Wait not till it shakes 
The forest. Come, lord, come I 

Jesus. Come whither? 
Sol) not, jjoor Mary. Is it fear for me, 
Or wounded love for Judas, wrings that heart, 
So good, yet j^assion-feebled ? 

Ma. Canst thou ask ? 
But stay not ! Mind mc not. Each moment brings 
Thy fate more near. Pray with me, John ! pray, Simon ! 
Cling to his feet ; or, if he will not stir. 
Bear him off witli you. In a little wliile, 
The hounds are on him. 

Jesus. Ay, I hear their bark 
Already in the distance. Where to fly 1 
It is too late to put the water's wash 
Between them and the blood-scent. Let us here. 
Even here, await the hunters. 

Ma. No, no, no ! 
Si. No, master ! Is tlais duty ? Is thy life 
Nothing to us ? 

John. Wliere hoj^e is 

Jesus. Is not safety. 
Look ye around. Save Simon, and thee, Jolm, 



66 THE NEW CALVARY 



Is none tliat is not frighten' d, "will not flee 
When the dogs' teeth meet in me. Answer not : 
I would it was nbt, even for your sakes, so. 
But Mary, in her great love, has more lieart 
Than all of ye together. 

Ma. Then, lord, come ; 
Come, for poor Mary's sake ! Come ! 

Jesus. Wliither, child ? 

Ma. What matters it, so time be gain'd ? The night 
Is all before us. Wlaile they wander here. 

Seeking, not finding 

Jesus. WiU they wander long ? 
The prey escap'd, they will not search his lair, 
But track him onward. 

3Ia. But it may be late : 
Judas may dally. He imply'd as much. 
Is fuU of terror at his own act. Come ! 
It is no time — forgive me — now to weigh 
Chances or reasons. O, if with my arms 
I could uijlift thee, and despite thyself 
Bear thee to safety, bear thee to some place 
Mo]"e hid and distant, I would not stand here, 
Imploring, weeping. Come, O master, come ! 
Come, Jesus ! Come, my soul's lord, come ! Ye men, 
Wliy stand ye listless ? Take liim up by force. 
O that I had your sinews ! Though my blood 
Should gush out at my throat, I would not stop, 
Till he were hidden, or myself dropp'd dead. 

Jesus. Mary, kind Mary — ( God for tliy much love 



ACT III. SC. 3. 67 

Bless thee forever and assoil thy shis ! ) 
Thou art wild with pity and terror. Listen now. 
A good man of the Elders, a brave spirit, 
Came to me yesternight, to urge me flee. — 

Ma. And thou didst not ! 

Jesus. Hush, hush. I would not then, 
Because my duty bid not. Now the peril 
Is come more nigh, is on me, shall I change ? 
Tlie will of God hath doom'd me to this fate 
Which now impends, or suffers it to fall, 
Because my blood shall make perhaps the soil 
I have dug and water'd fruitful. Let it flow 
In His dread name, if from the seed so sown 
And made to germinate, plants of heavenly grace, 
Meek righteousness, and uncomplaining faith, 
And human charity, and the larger thought 
That spreads the mmd which bigotry constrains, 
Shall flourish and bear multiplying fruit. 
I would I were assur'd of that ; then fear 
Of the coming horror would be tuni'd to hope 
Unshadow'd by a doubt. Hark ! see ! Nay, see ! 

Si. The lights of torches ! 

Jesus. Soon 't will be the glare. 

Ma. Art thou so calm ? 

Jesus. No, Mary, so resolv'd. 

Ma. [liieeling.] O God, have pity on liim, who has none 
On his own life, on us ! Thou, Moses' God, 
God of the Prophets, save him wlio is more 
Than all the prophets, and whose reason guides 



68 THE NEW CALVARY 



Unto Thee npward better than the hxws ! 
Jesus. Thou pray'st well, daughter ; but pray better thus, 
That I have strength to bear what He decrees 
And wisdom to apjDrove it to the last. — 
Hark, to the tramp ! And see, the gleam of spears ! 
What ! do they come as to a robber's band ? 
Are ye so fearful, brethren ? Ye will flee, 
When they are on us. 

Si. I shall not. Behold, 
I am arm'd, O master. 

Jesus. Put thou back thy sword : 
'T will hurt thee more than others. Mary weeps, 
And hugs my limbs. She will abide the test. 
But ye will fly me, all ; even thou too, John ; 
And Simon shall deny me. Hush ; they come ! 

Enter 

A small hand of Soldiers, preceded hy 

Malchus and Judas, 

the latter of whom, immediately upon speaJiing, 

falls hack to the side of the hand and 

shrinks from ohservation. 

Ju. There, that is he. 

Si. Lord, shall I cut him down ? 
Jesus. Put back, I say, thy sword. Men, seek ye me ? 
Lo, I am here. But suffer that the rest 
Depart unworry'd. 

Mai. They are gone at once : 



ACT III. SO. 2. G9 

They know what is wholesome. It is thou wc want ; 
Thy vagabonds are useless. Come along. 
Maky clings to Jesus. 
T?ie Soldiers inclose him in their midst, IMalchus 
waiting to see them ^xiss, while Jtjdas 
prepares tofolloio, his face vmffied 
in his mantle. 
What cloth this woman ? 

Jesus. Mary, get thee home. 
And God go with thee ! 

Ma. No, no, no ! But yet — 
A little further ! 

Mai. Let the jade come on. 
March, men. It is his harlot. — What dost thou, 
Thou traitor, stamping thus ? and with that look ? 
Thy face was better, cover' d. Art tliou mad? 
Ju. Ay, I am mad. Do thou thy duty. On. 



70 THE NEW CALVARY 



Act the Fourth 

Scene I. In the house of Caiaphas. The Sanhedrim 
assembled. 

Caiaphas. Nicodemtjs. Joseph op Ramathaim. 
The Scribe. And others of tlie Council. 
Jesus hpfore them. 
On one side, certain Witnesses. On the other, Malchtts. 

Cai. Wliat need we more ? These men, of simple faith, 
Unbias'd by prejudice, and unsway'd by hope 
Of personal gain, re-echoing not stale sounds 
Of popular rumor, nor stuff' d with childish tales, 
Extravagant, incolierent and distort, 
Bandy'd from one to another of the crowd, 
And changing shape at each new toss, but facts 
Themselves had witness' d, these whose strong attest 
Stands not unbuttress'd, but is on aU sides propp'd 
By evidence from our midst, — as, did we list. 
Or need, it might, by some constraint, have more, — 

[glancing at Nic. and Jos. 
These men of worth before you have made good 
The charges of sedition, ambitious aim. 
Gross sacrilege and blasphemous contempt 



ACT IV. SO, 1. 71 

Of the laws our hallowed sires have handed down 
From him who on the Mount of God receiv'd 
Mandate therein direct; nor has the accus'd 
Ro[)ly'd thereto. 

Nic. Hast thou then sought reply ? 

Cai. He would not answer. 

iY/c. Not to insult. No ! 
A brave man never doth, when self-respect, 
And consciousness of right and that retort 
And anger would be wasted, seal his lips. 

Cai. "Wilt thou then plead for him ? for thou wast there, 
In the late tumult, thou who with thy friend 
Didst rescue the blasphemer from a fate 
Which suffered had sav'd the Sanhedrim this pain. 

Nic. Ay, I have heard : 't was Joseph and myself 

Thou wouldst constrain to proof. "What would that be ? 

Not on thy side. The Scribe, who in that crowd 

Heard the contemptuous outcry. This our King / 

"Would make the popular longing and the hope 

Of the seditious this good man's reproach. 

Though I, and Joseph, and the very twelve 

"Who are his constant followers, all have heard, 

Often, the unmistakable disclaim 

Of such an aspiration. If the mob 

Know him their leader, find him apt to climb 

The steep of their desires, why made they threat 

To stone him ? 

Cai. Out of reverence for the laws 
And rites which he denounces. They whose eyes 



72 THE NEW CALVARY 



Brook'd not the eagle on the House of God," 
Nor hands would break the Sabbath albeit to save 
Their leagur'd city,^° will not suffer him, 
Their mimic projjhet and false Prince of Peace, 
Even while their shoulders strain to heave him up 
To his preposterous throne, to scout their rites. 
They took up missiles, not against their king. 
But the traducer of their hoary faith, 
The mocking foe of God. 

Nic. Supijose that be, — 
And I gainsay it not, — it throws no shade 
Of even simulate truth upon the charge. 
What he disvouches, what I stand prepar'd 
In his behalf — I ? others, wouldst thou more — 
To show unfounded, should be held good proof 
Against the vaporish fancies of a creed 
Which is delusion. They who hold that creed, 
Self-taught expounders of i^rophetic di-eams. 
May be seditious. It is not his fault. 
Nor makes him rebel or to Rome or us. 
His kingdom, doth he claim one, is the realm 
Wisdom inherits, and his sceptre sways 
Over the minds of men. I would that all 
Here present were its subjects. 

Cai. Art thou one ? 
Nic. Ay, where its rule is lawful ; nowhere else. 
I said, not slaves, but subjects. He whose mind 
Predominates my own, whose knowledge flows 
In broader channels, from a deeper source. 



ACT IV. SC. 1. 73 

Controls my brain and is, wheree'cr my thoughts 
Follow his teaching, monarch of my soul 
And master of my ways. 

Cnl. A weightless rod 
Of qualify'd allegiance. May we ask 
How fur it rules thee ? Wilt thou argue sane 
Tliis madman's rant, discrediting his crime 
Of dangerous iiracticc ? Shall we fold our hands, 
"VVliile ignorant reform throws down the Ark, 
Sweeps out of sight the miracles of God, 
And points with jeering at the mystic lite 
Enjoin'd at Mamre ? 

Nic. Every form of faith 
Yields to the wear of time which all things else 
Changes in part or wholly, rubbing down, 
Koshaping, or displacing. What our sires 
Found Tvisc or fitting, in our later age 
May be amiss and foolish. Wliat liave taught 
Your cherish'd ceremonies ? What has been 
In history the thousand-fold result 
Of all your multiple forms of pompous rite 
And mystical observance ? To estrange 
The heart from commune with the Invisible God, 
And bind the senses only ; to transfer 
To priests, made languid Ijy a daily task 
View'd as a means of living or a craft, 
Done by routine, by habit of the mind. 
With scarcely consciousness, to transfer to them 
The homage of the individual soul, 
Vol. VI.— 4 



74 THE NEW CALVARY 



And substitute their monotone of cliant, 

Their frankincense and secrets of the vail, 

For the mind's penance. Thus, from time to time, 

Has Israel turn'd from Sinai, and the gods 

Of heathen worship led away the hearts 

Of Zion's kings. Alas, had Moses crush'd 

Outright all futile forms, taken by the neck 

Idolatry and strangled her, not given 

The beast, half-smother'd, to regain her feet, 

We might have built our temples there where now 

This earnest-minded and God-fearing man 

Would give us footing. 

Cai. What ! And dar'st thou tlius 
Sink Moses to the flat of such as he ? 
Moses, whose name is next to God's ? Take heed 
Lest on thy mantle fall the impious stains 
Of this polluted Nazarene, and thou 
Thyself be held to judgment. 

Nic. This to me ! 
Thou canst not threaten save with futile words 
That make derision for thyself. I am, 
Thanks to our follies and our fathers' sins, 
Here under Roman power, and its shield 
Guards wliile it shadows. Thou canst not thy hand 
Lift in punition even on such as he 
Save by its will, and when I speak my thoughts 
•- I know 't is by that birthright of the soul 
Which, shame to the fetters of our slavish creed, 
Our conquerors rob not in religious faith, 



ACT IV. SO. 1. 75 

As we, who fled in its defence from Misre, 

"Would load it down with chams, and make its prison 

The starless cells of ignorant uuthought 

And dotard superstition. Threaten me ! 

Well I 'm no traitor, even to the trust 

Imply'd in fellowship : a word of mine 

Might put the best of you in danger. 

Jos. [aside. ] Hush ! 

Even for the Rabbin's sake. Thou fann'st the flames 
Kindled for his destruction. Be more calm. 
Nic. [hut openly.] It is too true. I am doing what in him 
I blam'd as rashness, and compress the limits 
I would unshackle. But, with blood like mine, 
Who can be tame to malice that usurps 
The staff of justice, and to bigot craft 
That stamps the very life out of the faith 
Breath'd into us by Heaven ? 

Cai. What say ye there ? 
Speak to the Council only. 

Nic. They have heard. 
This : that your tyranny abuses God. 
But so it hath ever been, will ever be, 
Where for a time the lion of the law 
Has set his talon'd foot upon the stag. 
Prostrate, deserted by his timorous kmd. 
And di-opping blood already where the hounds 
Of superstition and religious zeal 
Have fasten'd to his haunches. 

Cai. Sayst thou this 



76 THE NEW CALVARY 



To us? 

Nic. To all men ; for all time. In all 
Religions, priestly power will stretch its hand 
Over the throat of liberty of will, 
Ready to gripe it, if it make one move 
For freer breathing. This, because its own 
Is threatened by the struggle. Should this man 
You persecute establish, by the force 
Evolv'd of persecution, all as much 
As by his godly doctrine, a new faith, 
The time will come its hierarchs shall do 
As ye do, strain to stifle the strong breath 
Of free opinion, and to put out eyes 
That look too nearly into their abuse 
Of questionable power ; thus themselves 
Doing what they denounce as done to him, 
And founding tyranny on the hollow base 
Of that soul-freedom which from tyrannous stuff 
Was builded against tyranny." 

Cai. Thou hast spoken, 
Under the Council's sufferance, wlio in vain 
Have listened for one plea in his defence 
For whose defence thou stand'st. But I shall be 
More just than thou, as calmer, and shall take 
From his own lips all that himself may urge. 
If thou wouldst aid him then, so let him speak 
Uninterrupted. 

Nic. If thou give him scope 
To explain away the charges, whose mere words, 



ACT IV. SC. 1. 77 

Taken at the letter, have an air of truth 
False to their inner meaning when they are his, 
And, when they 2}oint to deeds, so habit facts 
That their true shape is hidden, it is well. 
But do not thou discredit to thyself. 
Nor falsify right judgment, asking that 
Wliich in itself accuses, and l)y words 
Insinuates evidence, or leads on the accus'd 
To criminate himself. 

Cai. Enough, from thee. 
Thou, man of Nazareth, what hast thou to say ? 
Jesus. Notliing. 

Cai. How ! Nothing ? 

Jesus. Nothing. And because 
If what I said should tend to my behoof 
Ye would not lend it faith, if to my hurt 
'T would not be true. 

Cai. Mark his assurance. Speak 
To what we ask thee. What art thou ? 

Jesus. A man, 
As thou art.''* 

Cai. Fellow! — Art thou not a son 
Of Joseph, the house-joiner ? 

Jesns. So I have heard 
My mother tell, and, holding her most chaste. 
So I believe. 

Cai. Thou art not then the man 
That was to come ? 

Jesus. Who, meanest thou, was to come ? 



78 THE NEW CALVARY 



Cai. He, the foretold Messias.^' 

Jesus. I know none such. 
Cai. O horror ! hear ! — Believ'st thou not the Prophets ? 

Hast thou no faith in what they have foretold ? 
Jesus. When foretold truly, after the event. 

There are no prophets. Wherefore should they come ? 

If they predict, it is to listless ears 

Or unto doubters. Doth then the All- Wise 

O'erride the laws Himself hath given to Nature, 

And given thus in vain ? Doth He create 

What is to be of none effect, or work, 

Like men, in hope, without a sure result ? 

Either the so-calPd Prophets were inspired, 

Or they were not. If not, what they foretold 

Was at the best wise forecast. — 

Scribe. Shall we liear ? 
This is mere blasphemy. 

Cai. Break not his speech : 
His own mouth shall condemn him. 

Jesus. — If they were, 
Then is Jehovah mock'd by his own works. 
Or unto favor'd men has stoop'd to talk 
With futile purjDOse. 

Cai. Hast thou done ? 

Jesus. Thou hear'st : 
I have answer' d. 

Cai. What will now the Elder say ? 
Nic. I ? That the man has spoken simply sense. 
Cai. What ! wilt thou too blaspheme ? Are we become 



ACT IV. SC. 1. 79 

A senate of the heathen ? Shall the elect 

Of GocVs own folk resound the applause of men 

^Yl\o are false to God ? 

Nic. 'T is thoy are false to God 
Who assign His attributes to men. Who can 
Foresee the future, save, as through thick fogs, 
Dimly, by glimpses, — with experienc'd eye 
Forecasting from the past ? What swells the strain 
Of all your prophets ? Wild lament of ills. 
Denunciations of impending wo. 
Their punishment and sequence, mix'd with hopes 
That take the natural and poetic shape 
Of rosy-hu'd predictions of a day 
That still may rise in storm, — as all men read 
The shower in the raincloud, and the blast 
When the trees bend before it. He whose lips 
Were touch' d with fire by seraphs, when in dream 
The doorposts of the temple shook with awe 
And the house fill'd with smoke,'" he, in the heat 
Of his enkindled song, sings grandly out 
What hath no literal sense, and cannot have, 
And what, in any sense, applies to times 
The enraptured words make imminent, not remote." 
The Virgin birth is credited and the people 
See it in Jesus. Is that Jesus' fault ? 
If 't were, ye would condemn him. That 't is not, 
Is evident from his disbelief, which scouts 
At such embodiment of a poet's dreams. 
And yet ye would condemn him. 



80 THE NEW CALVARY 



Scribe. 'T is not all. 
He violates the Sabbath and makes light 
Of sacrifice. Will he deny it ? 

Cai. Answer. 
Though ample are the proofs, yet answer thou. 
Jesus. Hast thou not heard what Samuel said ? Behold, 
To obey is more than sacrifice, to hear 
Than is the fat of rams.^^ And after him, 
Fifteen score years and more, yet from our time 
Almost eight-hundred, Thus Jehovah saith : 
What unto Me your sacrifice of meats ? 
Not in shed blood ofbnllocl's, lambs, and goats 
I taTce delight. Tour incense I abhor. 
Your New Moons and your Sahbaths, your fix' d feasts, 
Four solemn meetings cannot I abide.^^ 
Cai. It is enough. Or, shall we, children, take, 
Wlio are unletter'd, from this learned Pnest, 
This Father, this reshaper of the laws 
Of undeserving Moses, nay this Judge 
And King and Prophet, shall we take from him 
More lessons in our offices ? Perchance 
The glory of the Thummim may revive 
For his unjewel'd breast, and in its light 
Great oracles be given. It is said 
X He hath already proven the Sabbath void 
By David and the shewbrcad, making him, 
Ilis high progenitor, pattern in the need 
Of his own ragged followers. Wilt thou deign, 
Thou new-sprung sucker from the Ijuried root 



ACT IV. SC. 1. 81 

Of old-time Jesse, but for thee forgot, 

To wave thy boughs in signal of the way 

We have lost ? for we are Gentiles at the best, 

Weaiy with travel, ignorant and dull. 

And strangers to this sky. Leads yonder road 

Men call the Sabbath to the Mount of God, 

Or was it of man's making ? 

JSlc. Answer not 
To insult. 

Jesus. Insult has for me no sound 
More than the murmur of the irksome fly 
I cannot brush away. 

Cm. Proceed. Thy guilt 
Is all too large to get increase of bulk 
By insolent frowardness. 

Jesus. I know it well 
Tliat I am doom'd unlieard ; nor can that man, 
So worthy of the name, whom God will l)less 
That he upholds the innocent and would lift 
Reason and right, down-trodden, from the feet 
Of ignorance and injustice, can he help 
Or harm me in this hour. With thankful heart 
Therefore I disregard him, and reply : 
The Sabbath is approv'd of God, but came 
Of man's contrivance. Matters it to Him, 
To whom all days are one. Who hath no day 
Defin'd by light and darkness, whicli of seven 
We set aside to honor him ? if it lie 
That we therein do honor him, who approves, 

4* 



82 THE NEW CALVARY 



Not for His glory, but that one day's rest, 
Hallow' d by prayer, and beautify' d by calm 
Unbroke by what makes hideous m the eyes 

Of all good men 

Cai. Enough. Here shalt thou pause. 
Nor rise thou, Nicodemus, yet again. 
Shall we sit here until another sun 
Goes down upon this blasphemy ? I see 
In all of ye, save two I need not name, 
AjDproval of my purpose and my course. 
Foe to our rites, perverter of our faith, 
Inciter of rebellion to the rule 
Of those whom Heaven for our continu'd sins 
Hath given dominion over us, whose yoke 
This man's ambition would make heavier still. 
His life is forfeited ; nor can we doubt 
Rome will do justice. To the Judgment, then. 
Let him be taken. 
Scribe and 



, To the Judomeut, ho ! 
Others. ' ° 

Jesus. Thou seest, O Nicodemus. 

Nic. See, that right 

Cai. Let neither speak. Away with him at once. 

Nic. Can it be wonder'd that Jehovah's wrath 

Cai. Wonder unto the walls, if so thou wilt : 

They are at thy semce. — Quickly, men. — • Move on. 



ACT IV. SC. 2. 83 



Scene II. 
As in Act I. Scene I. 
Pontius. Camilla. 

Pon. What brings thee from the women's room so soon ? 
Tliou art alway welcome : but in little while 
I must to the Judgment. "Why art thou so pale ? 

Camil. I have had a dream ; a hideous dream. The sky 
Was hung witli black, as when the shadow' d sun, 
With his mere rim on one side uncclips'd, 
Tlirows gloom like twilight and the chill of awe 
On shivering thousands. On a barren hill, 
Strcw'd horribly with skulls and dead-men's bones, 
Stood up a lofty cross, its top made dim 
By the o'erhanging blackness ; and thereon, 
With head down-droojj'd and body ninning blood. 
The Rabbi Jesus, dying amid the jeers 
Of a besotted multitude, whose hands 
Surrounding soldiers only kept from acts 
Worse than their insults. But before the guards. 
Facing the dying, stood a man like them 
Roman in look and garb, and watch'd the scene 
As if 'twere of his bidding. It was thou. — 

Pon. Never ! That could not be. Am I a Jew ? 



84 THE NEW CALVARY 



What is the Chiist to me that I should stand 
To view his death-throes, even had I bid ? 
Rests it with me, your prophet may live on 
Long as Tithonus, and nor cross nor spear 
Give him a roljlser's ending. Tliy strange dream. 
Sad though it is, is, like all other dreams, 
Made up of things impossible to sense 
Though shadow'd from the possible, with forms 
Shap'd of i)ast thoughts, the accidents of mind. 
Let it not haunt thee further. 

C'amil. Yet hear all. 
At the last moment, the transfix'd on thee 
Threw a reproachful look, where was no scorn 
Nor anger, only sorrow. Thereupon, 
A demon seem'd to seize thee. With a yell 
Of terrible despair, thou bar'dst thy sword, 

And rushing on its point I saw no more, 

But woke in anguish, gasping and afi-aid. 
Pon. Afraid of what, Camilla ? Am I a man 
To fall upon my sword, because a Jew 
Looks sad in dying ? Not were all his Tribe 
Hvmg on a thousand Golgothas. 

Camil. Tliou goest 
To sentence Jesus ? 

Pon. 'T is for that indeed 
I am caird, but am not purposed. The Iligh-priest 
Sent over-night to tell me he was seiz'd 
And would have hearing in the early mom, 
And at the sixth hour, even now at hand, 



ACT IV. SC. 2. 85 

Should come to me for judgment. 

Camil. Thus tliou sccst, 
His fate ah-eady is decreed. But thou, 
"Wilt not forget thy solemn word to me ; 
Thou, noble Pontius, generous if stem, 
Wilt not sit stiU while bloody-minded Jews 
Pollute tliy function ? 

Pon. Wliat I said was said. 
I shall keep faitli with thee, ])ut not the less 
Must also with tlie Pontiff. If this man 
Is blameless as thou holdst him, I shall do 
All I may dare to save liim. But if proven 
A rabble-leader, dangerous to the State, 
And, with vile purpose of aml^itious aim. 
Seeking to bring in scorn his country's laws 
And those who upholding them obstruct Ms way ; 
Or if not proven, yet the popular voice 
Calls for his punishment ; I must I fear 
Surrender him for Rome's sake. 

Camil. Tliou wilt not ! 
O that I were as thou ! 

Pon. Wert thou as I, 
Thou wouldst yield readier, as more lightly sway'd 
And having those fleshly fears which shake me not. 
All government must, in some form and degree, 
Yield to the people. He who stands unmov'd, 
Fix'd in his own views for he deems them right, 
And, constant unto justice, shuts his ears 
Against expedience, may be good and great. 



86 THE NEW CALVARY 



But is unfit to govern. For a while 

His mounds keep back the billows, but the wave 

Carries off with it each time more and more 

Of the heap'd-up earth, and when the bank goes down 

The flood sweeps-on the same. Here Daunus comes 

To array me. Be content. Look, if thou wilt. 

From thy lattice on the Pavement. Thou wilt see 

I shall do all I may. But let the place, 

Where, since without, the priests stand undismay'd 

Wlio dread defilement in a Gentile's liouse. 

Remind thee what we yield to popular whim. 

Blindness and prejudice ; nor expect too much. 



Scene HI. 

A street near tJie Gabbatlia or Pavement. 

John and Simon meeting. 

John. Whence com'st thou ? Is it over ? Go'st thou now 
To the Pavement ? Thou look'st hurried, anxious, sad. 

8i. It is most truly over ; for tliey bear him 

Not to release, but sentence. Hear'st tliou there 
The shouts of tlie people anxious for the show ? 



ACT IV,. sc. 3. 87 

They bode no good. I had the wish to see 
And hear what might transpire, and hurry'd thus. 
'T is better otherwise ; w^e might ])c known 
And set on by tlie crowd. 

John. Alas, we have been 
Cowards enougli aheady. 

SI. And must be. 
One only liath been true to him : a woman. 
But she had nought to dread. Yet we, if faint 
Were not false hearted. Stop and hear. The crowd 
Will thus have time to arrange itself, before 
We reacli the Judgment. Hast thou haply heard 
Of Judas ? 

John. No. 

Si. I sought the High-jiriest's house 
This morn betimes, to gather news, and found 
IMary of Magdala crouch'd without the gate. 
She had watch'd there all the night. Ere yet I sjDake, 
Even while I stoop' d to lift her head, which lay 
On her spread palms, that rested on her knees, 
The portal oj^ens, and behold, where comes, 
Haggard, wild-looking, Judas ; in his hand 
A leathern money-pouch ; which when I saw, 
Enrag'd, I wanted but the sword I held 
The night before to have hew'd him into shreds. 
John. 'T was better as it was. 

Si. As thou shalt hear. 
When her he saw, his paleness grew like death, 
And his sunk eyes glar'd in their caves. At first, 



88 THE NEW CALVARY 



When Mary, lifting up lier head, gave out 
A strange, low cry of horror, and again 
Sunk it upon her knees, he stepp'd aside 
As would he hun-y from us, but stopp'd short, 
And, laying his hand upon her shoulder, said. 
In tremulous tones and broken, Mary — come. 
John. How could he hope it 'I 

Si. Haply, for the means 
He had to brilie her. But he knew her not. 
Upstarting with a shiver, back she drew, 
And facing him a moment, with a look 
Which held him as the serpent's holds the bird, — 
For, though his jaw drojjp'd and his ghastly cheek 
Turu'd as I thought still ghastlier, from her eyes 
He could not take away Ms own, — cried " Come ? 
Come ! And with thee ? I 'd rather serve the lust 
Of all Jerusalem's ruffians, turn by turn. 
Their tumbling hands would not pollute my robe 
As do thy fingers. Go thou, thy own way. 
To the Devil's angels." Then she turn'd her back. 
And gathering round her face her long hair stood 
Under the door-beam, with her head sunk down 
On both her palms. Thou wilt then. Be it so. 
This was all Judas answer'd. Tearing open 
The bag's clos'd mouth, he shook it up i' the air, 
Scattering the coin it held in falling showers. 
For which the urchins scrambled that were nigh 
And others gather'd, then with one wild glare 
Turn'd upon Mary, not regarding me, 



ACT IV. sc. 3. 89 

Rush'd from the spot, to the Temple, as they tell, 
And managing to climb tlie southern wall,'* 
Flung himself downward headlong. 

John. What an end ! 
Si. Better, though frightful, than the unweighable guilt 
Which led to it 

John. Heaven forgive him I 

Si. Well, amen. 



90 THE NEW CALVARY 



Scene IV. 

The Gabiatha or Pavement, 

Pontius on the Judgment-seat. 
Jesus tefore Mm. 
Caiaphas, iGitli a number of the Sanhedrim, 
among whom are Nicodemus and Joseph of Ramathatm 
and the Scribe, 
tehind and to the right of Jesus, — 
Caiaphas -nearly abreast of him, and Nicodemus a 
little removed, in the rear of Caiaphas. 
Roman Guards, icitJi their Subcenturio or Lieutenant, 
on the left. Other guards at the bottom of the 
Pavement; inhere is a promiscuous croiod of Jews, fore- 
most of whom are Mary, Jesus'' motlier, Martha, 
and Mary Magdalena. 

Cai. By our most ancient and God-given laws. 
Never yet abrogated, though in part at times 
Fairn into some disuse, the accus'd is found. 
For blasphemous words and acts that scout our faith. 
Worthy of death, which in an earlier day. 
When Judah's lion was yet uncag'd nor hid 
The terror of his claws, we might ourselves 
Have giv'n by the people's hands. But not for this, 



ACT IV. SC. 4. 91 

Our Jcmsh causes, albeit of grave offence, 

Ask wo the Roman sentence, but for that 

Wliieh touches Rome herself, flagitious aims 

Of personal ambition ; thereunto, 

The inciting of the rabble to revolt, 

And subtle teachings of sophistic lore 

That rouse bad passions and biing into distrust 

And hatred lawful rule and those who stand, 

Its ministers, athwart that tortuous way 

That leads, by steps of tumult and grave crime, 

To a one-day's baseless throne. — I have said. 

Poll. Sj^eak thou. 
I am bound and shall be well-content to hear 
All thou canst urge against tliis charge. Is 't true 
Thou hast the insane amljition to aspire 
To build again that throne whose scattered parts 
Never shall join again ? 

Jesus. The throne I build, 
Or seek to build, is founded not by hand. 
But rose by Heaven's fiat, what time the Sons 
Of God Hosanna shouted when tlie man. 
New-fashion' d of the elements, stood up 
Lord of himself arid nature, and its parts 
Have never been disjointed and can not 
Be scatter' d, though at times half-hid and dimm'd 
By dust and rust of ages, as at times. 
In other ages, unobscur'd and l:)right 
With cumulative brilliance ; for its base 
Is solid as the world, and with tlie world 



92 THE NEW CALVARY 



Alone shall crumble. 

Pon. Leave thy Eastern pomp 
Of symbols ; I am Eoman. What should be 
That seat unshakable ? 

Jesus. The throne of mind. 
Pon. 'T is proudly said, and, is it said with truth, 
Implies no rebel purjiose. If thy dream 
Were ever realized, and thou shouldst wield 
The kings-staff of the intellect o'er minds 
Made vassals to thy own, would not thy heart 
Have human longings for an earthly rule, 
Or wouldst thou not be carried on the tide 
Of popular favor to that shelvy shore 
Where many like thee are dash'd to pieces, few 
Are wash'd unwounded, yet the Alpine surf 
Thunders to them in vain ? I speak thy style : 
Answer in mine. 

Jesus. They who would mount to power 
On the mob's servile shoulders, by fair words 
Coax them to stoop. Who ever knew my tongue 
Tam'd to cajolement ? who has not, of all 
Who have heard me, here, in Galilee, where'er 
I have taught in public, or have spoke at home, 
Known me to be no flatterer, speaking truths 
That humbled, or offended, and whose aim 
Was jjrofit to the hearer, not to me ? 
What else implies the High-priest ? If I am 
A rabble-leader, why am I found here, 
And the streets quiet ? 



ACT IV. SC. 4. 93 

Cai. I have said indeed, 
His acts are blasi^liemous and revolt the sense 
Even of the people ; 't is his insolent mood 
Flush'd by success : but not the less his arts 
Are constantly seditious ; and for tins, 
Lo his arrest in private and by night. 
Wlio knows the fickle populace ? To-day, 
The wind blows liard against the man ; to-morrow, 
Loose him, 't may set again in his favor, stretch 
His sail to the utmost, and his galley send 
Safely to haven. It drives, as thou hast said, 
Most noble Pontius, tow'rd a dangerous shore : 
But shall we leave to shallows and sunk rocks 
The chance of its destruction ? 

Pon. Ilast thou proofs ? 
Cai. The witnesses are al)sent, all save one, 
A man of standing, letter' d in the law, 
Here in our laody, and who avers as they. 
But is 't thy pleasure, from tlie outer crowd 
Men may be summoned, even by the score, 
Foi" a like attest, that m this Nazarene 
Is risen a new form of the would-be kings, 
Subtler, more dangei'ous, laying not open siege, 
With enginery of violent revolt. 
To tower and citadel of faith and state. 
But digging darkling hourly underneath 
Tlieir deep foundations. 

Nic. Suffer me in turn 
To plead, O Pontius. The one witness here, 



94 THE NEW CALVARY 



What was his evidence ? Tliis naked fact, 
That in the tumult yesterday one cry'd, 
Scoffingly, This our King ! No man disputes. 
The accus'd will not deny, the ignorant mass. 
Looking for that Messias which should come, 
"Would make of him their leader. It may be 
His very followers hope so much. Wliat then ? 
All men, his followers, I myself, have heard, 
Nay, has he not maintain' d it even now ? 
He aspires to wield the sceptre of the mind 
Over men's morals. Worker in a field 
Too long left fallow, his strong hands would pluck 
The tares that choke the wheat, and make to grow 
The harvest many fold. That idlers take 
The husbandman for master, turn his spade 
Into a sceptre, and his humbled knees 
TVIake bow'd upon a king's seat, is the fault 
Of their false vision. Caiaphas declares 
His tongue insidious and his lessons craft. 
Circuitous indeed the craft which makes 
Opprobrious speech serve flattery and accepts 
Insults and stones for homage. — I have said. 

Pon. And after my o'wn thinking. Were it meet, 
I could myself bring witness of the truths 
That base thy argument. But speak again, 
Thou Nazarene. Wouldst tliou indeed be king ? 

Jesus. Not would Rome's emperor guard my peaceful throne, 
And wreathe my staff with myrtle. But through blood 
To wade to its possession, and by wars 



ACT IV. sc. 4 95 

Maintain its mastery ! not were I indeed, 
"What I have never claim'd to be and know 
I am not, of David's seed. Kings are not cast, 
Not in these troublous times, in such a mold 
As shap'd my clay ; and they whose tongues ascrilje 
Worldly ambition to this mournful heart, 
See not its fountains, or pollute their flow. 
Po/i. I h've heard much in thy praise from oue I love. 
I credit it. Kings of thy stuff may reign ; 
But they wlio achieve a throne, or found its steps. 
Are woven of stouter thread. Thy wel^ would break 
As easily as the spider's. But thy acts. 
Thy lore, give umbrage, and, if true or not, 
Rightly, I think, for thou wast born a Jew, 
And owcst observance to thy country's rites, 
Its faitli, its priesthood. If I let thee go. 
Wilt thou forswear thy preaching, and thy lore 
Keep for the closet, where thy gods alone ■ 
Shall dictate to thy conscience ? 

Jesus. Is the price 
Of freedom the soul's servitude, to chain 
The thoughts in profitless cells, and that good work 
The Father bids me do, and gave me power 
Fitly to do, abandon ? What were life 
Without the aims of life ? 'T is not to eat, 
To diink, to sleep, to bask him in the sun, 
]Make man's sole being. lie shares that with the beast. 
The soul has its own nourishment and warms 
Its blood in sunshine from a heaven within. 



96 THE NEW CALVARY 



Take from me that existence, thou mayst give 
My body to my foes. I will not chain 
My f reeborn thoughts, I cannot live a drone. 
Cai. Thou seest, most noble Pontius, kindly grace 
Is wasted on him. Loos'd, the man will be 
The same fomenter of disturbance still. 
Nay, he finds glory in it, and, thanking not, 
Throws in thy teeth thy bounty, nor will take 
Even life itself, save as he likes the terms. 
That cannot be. The interest of state, 
The policy of Caesar, — dare I say it. 
Thy own high function, — • all recjuire that crimes 
Such as the Council prove on the accus'd 
Should not go unchastis'd. 

Pon. Nor shall they so. 
Haply, since contumacious, tliough not wrong 
In Ms own eyes, he needs correction. Thus, 
He shall be scourg'd, ere loos'd. 

Nic. No, Pontius, no. 
Do not to him what never could be done 
To any freeborn Roman. If a Jew, 
He is not less a freeman, and the best, 
Since freest, of his kind. 

Pon. Not of my choice, 
But need, I offer it, hoping so to spare 
The greater punishment. 

Scribe. Which he deserves. 
Scourge him not, noble Pontius : to the cross, 
In justice, give liim. 



ACT IV. SC. 4. 97 

Peoji. Crucify liim. 

Pon. Peace ! — 
Ilcar'st tliou tliat clamor ? "T is not I would treat 
Thy Rabbin as a slave. — Wilt thou rei^ent, 
Thou Jesus, of thy teaching, and these fools, 
That will not have thee, leave to their oato ways ? 
Choose thy own doom. 

Jesus. Tiic cross affrights me not, 
Nor yet the lash. No i)unishnu'ut enslaves 
The freeborn spirit, which stripes can not degrade, 
Nor pul)lic death witli torture make forget 
Its true condition. Give me, if thou wilt. 
To death : 't is in thy power, if thy owni soul 
Will let thee : but not thou, nor Cicsar's self. 
Nor the whole world combined, can change one thought. 
Or make me other than I am. 

Cai Behold! 
Clamors the people justly ? 

Peojy. To thd Cross ! 
Scribe. lie is a foe to CiPsar. 

Peop. To the cross ! 
Mary. No, no ! he is mad : he knows not what he says. 
Pon. Silence, ye curs ! Thou woman, what art thou ? 
Mary. I am his mother. Have mercy ! He is mad. 
Cai. Be silent, woman ; and thou, so])l)ing one. 

Who art with her. Let them, Pontius, be remov'd. 
Pon. Spare thy advice : I am judge and ruler here. 
The woman may give witness. — Is this sooth 
Tliy mother speaks of thee ? I am prone to think 
VoT,. VT.— 5 



98 THE NEW CALVARY 



Tliou art in thy lofty fancies parcel-mad, 
Like all the prophets, and at times seest not 
The worldly way before thee. Stray' st thou thus, 
We cannot make thee answer for thy acts, * 

And shall dismiss thee. 

Jesus. Rather let me bear 
My foes' worst malice, than, offending truth, 
Hear in tlie mind the upbraiding voice of God. 
I would, O Pontius, thou and all the rest 
Saw with as clear a vision as I see 
And had as sound a judgment. 

Cai. Said I well? 
The leopard cannot change his spots ; the beast 
Gotten on blasphemy by the vulgar rut 
Of lunatic ambition will rrprear 
Its heads defiant and be rampant still. 
Pan. He hath the stubborn courage of his stock. 
"Why should you Jews upbraid it ? 

Cai. For it threats 
Hourly our peace. I must be pardon'd here, 
O noble Pontius, that I dare avow 
Wonder at thy forbearance. Shall one man 
Be of more count than thousands ? If the corpse 
Of one bad subject may stop up the vent 
Whence flows, or may flow, streams of innocent blood, 
Shall we not use it ? more too when, besides, 
All interests combin'd that thrive by peace 
Are peril'd by false mercy ? 

Poll. What wouldst thou ? 



ACT IV. SC. 4. 99 

He is a brave man, and, I tbiuk, a good. 
Hark to the women wailing. Will not less 
Thau death content thee ? 

Cai. Let the people say. 

Peop. Death to the would-be king ! 

Scribe. To Caesar's foe. 

Peop. Give liim to crucifixion. 

Pon. Silence, Jews. 

iV7c. One word, Pontius. 

Pon. Thee I gladly hear. 

iVJV. The Scribe in malice calls him C;T?sar's foe. 
Thou wilt take me as witness, — shall I swear ? 
Joseph of Ramathaim too will swear, 
And others, is there need, — that Jesus here. 
This innocent, most wrong'd man, at all times l)ids 
Obedience to authority, and makes 
A special point that tribute should be paid 
To Ca;sar. Shall I prove it ? 

Pon. Not to me : 
I credit it. But tliou seest yon bigot crowd, 
Already toss'd by passion. They are Jews. 
In Rome, the prisoner would not stand arraign'd 
One hour. What can I do ? Your senate calls 
For sentence ; and the people, for some cause, 
Are wroth against their idol. Of my will, 
It were a stretch of power to set him free. 
He, too, obdurate. — Men of Juduli, hear. 
On tliis your annual festival ye are wont 
To have freed to you a prisoner. Let it be 



100 THE NEW CALVARY 



This blameless Nazarene. 

Peop. No, no ; not him ! 
Scribe. Before us, he is guilty. 

Pon. Stolid hearts, 
Ye know not what is guilt. Hear yet again. 
There lietli in prison, fetter'cl, clue to death, 
A man whose guilt admits no doubt, — Barabbas, - 
Taken in open revolt, with armed hands, 
Red with a soldier's murder. Which of these, 
This peace-persuading teacher, or the rebel, 
Blood-stain'd and ruffian, will ye I release ? 
Bcribe. Barabbas. 

Peoih Ay, Baraljbas. 

Pon. And this man. 
What shall be done witli him ? 

Scribe. What we have said : 
Give him to crucifixion. 

Peo}}. To tlie cross ! 
Pon. Think better of it. He hath done no act 
Deserving death. 

Scribe. He hath l)y our own law 
Wrought several sucli. 

Cai. And, lal^oiing to subvert. 
Whether of will or led on by events. 
The existing state, deserves it at Rome's hands. 
Pon. Hear'st thou, unhappy ? Hast thou aught to say 
Before tliou goest to punishment ? 

Jesus. But this. 
In the dread names of Lilierty and Right, 



ACT IV. SO. 4. 101 

Which die not, though oft wounded, and whose tongues 

Even tyrants have at times to hear in lieart 

When the ear shuts to them, I do protest 

Against this sentence, which does wrong to truth, 

To reason, and to justice. Take thou hccd, 

Thou who canst plead no passion, nor art blind 

By bigotry or prejudice. My life, 

God will require it at thy hand. 

Pan. Thy god 
Will not. Is 't I condemn thee ? Lo, your rites 
Lend me a symbol, and I wash my liands 
Of all spot of tliy blood. 

Scribe. Be it on our robes. 

Pe^p. And on our cliildren's heads. 

Cai. Amen, for aye. 

Nic. Yea, it will be for aye, while man has thought 
Or Heaven the sense of judgment. Madmen all ! 
But [to Jos.'\ that the unclouded Roman should so see 
Himself expurgated ! 

Pon. What sayst thou there ? 
Tliou art a bold man, and I like thee better 
Than all thy race ; for tliou skulk'st not behind 
Old ambush'd superstitions, when tlie dai-ts 
Of pitiless folly liurtle against trutli : 
But tliou kenn'st not expedience and wliat must 
Tlie man wlio sits where I sit. Still, for thee 
I will do something and for him thou hast shielded. 
Hark, Marius. [turning to the 8ubcenturion.'\ Go thou with 
the guard. Protect, 



102 THE NEW CALVARY 



So far as may be, from the foul-mouth' d mob 
The prisoner, and see no useless pangs 
Lengthen his agony. 

While this is saying, the women have made their way to 

Jesus, who hisses tenderly his mother, speaTcs a word 

to Martha, and laying his hand on Mary Magda- 

lena^s head, who hneeling emhraces his Tcnees, af- 

pears to console her. The Jews stand apart, 

looTcing on not disrespectfully ; nor does 

Caiaphas letray displeasure. 

And now the Guards approach, and 
the Subcenturion, putting aside gently the women, 
is about to give Jesus to he bound, when Pon- 
tius cries from his seat : 

Let the man walk free. 
Jesus. \to Nic. and Jos. who approach and take his hands. ^ 
Farewell. Were the world like you twain ; were ten 
Alone in all Jerusalem like thee, 

generous Nicodemus, I might sigh 
To smk to darkness while my sun of life 
Is yet at mid-day : but now Truth is dead, 
And Reason's heart, made bestial, gives no throb 
That answers me, refusing to be stirr'd, 

1 close my books of stewardship and go, 
If not with gladness, yet without regret, 
To give in the account. Farewell. 

Nic. For thee, 
Thou art happier not to live tlian see the ills 
That wait this generation, by their God 



ACT IV. SC. 4. 103 

Abandon'd. Even I am prophet here, 

And weep the desolate city tliat shall be, 

The blood-stain' d and the bad. And now, farewell. 

I need not bid thee die as lits a man. 

Thou ai-t sure to do so. Joseph and myself 

Vow to thee seemly burial. 

Jos. Thou shalt sleep, 
Lov'd Ra1)b:n, in my own new tomb. Farewell. 
Cai. Pass on. Ye dally there too long. 

Jos. For shame ! {low. 

Nic. [aloud. 

He is right. The folded, tether'd, dog-watch'd herd 
Must not have time to scent what stuff they browse. 



104 THE NEW CALVARY 



Act the Fifth 

Scene I. A highway leading to Golgotha or Calvary. 

NicoDEMUS a7id Joseph 

walking slowly and sorrowfully upicard. 

Enter, 

from the opposite direction and pass on. 

Mart, weeping, and sujiported hy John and Martha. 

Close behind her, Mary Magdalena, her face 

iuried in her hands, 

overr which her long hair falls dishevelled. 

Further had", 

Simon, who is intercepted hy Nicodemus and Josepih. 

Nic. How fares it with liim, Simon ? 

8i. As witli one — 
( Mind not my tears. I have not wept till now — 
Not till thou spak'st ) — as — as with one whose thoughts 
Are no more of this world. His eyes are clos'd,. 
And his head droops more low, and lower. They, 
The women, were not suffered to remain ; 
And the last words the master spake bade John 
Take his jjlace with his mother. Go ye now 
To see him ? 



ACT V. SC. 1. , 105 

2fic. 'T is our duty we have thought. 
Why hast thou left him ? 

Si. 'T was too much to bear, 
Those mangk'd hands and feet, bedropp'd with gore 
From their jagg'd punctures, and that pallid face, 
Whereon the sweat of weakness and death-pain 
Stands in large drops that seem too thick to fall. 
His mother happily saw him not, until 
The cross rose with its horrid load above 
The heads of the shouting rabble : for no groan 
Came from his lips to fright her, when the spikes 
Were di-ivcn through his strctch'd palms, and his feet, 
Press'd down to take them. There was but one sound 
When ceas'd the hammer, and the tree was rais'd, 
When, looking languidly around, then up 
Unto the sky, the Rablji pray'd of God 

Forgiveness for Ms murderers. 

Nic. And this 

The man the Roman, on a mean pretence 

Of state-expedience, yielded to a death 

Reserved for slaves and ruffians ! Well it were. 

Had he been there to hear him. Let us go. 

Seems he to suffer yet ? or did he take 

The potion ? 

Si. No, he wavkl it back, Avhen offered 

Before he was affix'd, and once again. 

With motion of the head and mournful smile, 

After the cross was lifted. 

Nic. As I thought, 
5* 



106 THE NEW CALVARY 



Valiant as good. I yet may spare liim pain. 
Let us make haste. 

Si. "With the good Elders' leave, 
I will attend them, and behold the end. 



Scene II. 

Golgotha. Jesus on the cross. 

Around, a Roman Guard ; behind lohom, the Subcenturion. 

The People in the foreground. 

Among them, lowest down, and a little apart, two of 

the Witnesses that had appeared before 

the Sanliedrim. 

These converse in low tones. 

1st Wit. He has a stanch heart, and had led us well 
Were he so minded. I am almost griev'd 
I lent a hand to bring him to a fate 
He bears so bravely. 

2d Wit. But whose fault was tliat ? 

1st Wit. Wliy, the High-priest and Scribe's. 



ACT V. SC. 2. 107 

2d Wit. I meant not that. 
They would have done their work in any wise, 
By others, if not us. We arc scarce to blame. 
'T was his own rashness brought the Rabbi here. 
"Wliy must he talk of things which, even if wrong. 
He could not better ? 

1st Wit. Ay, there was a time 
"We might have plac'd him on a different throne, 
Though lower than this bloody one, and spar'd 
The Romans' doing guard. A man that makes 
So little of his life, and with his voice 
And eyes and mien, had made a goodly king 
If not of David's line. He might have driven 
This swarm of locusts into the Salt Sea, 
And made our nation glorious. 

2d Wit. I think not. 
Seest thou, he dies not as your heroes die. 
Samson bless' d not his enemies. This man 
Had warn'd tliem from the roof before it crash'd, 
More pleas' d alone to suffer. Lo, where comes 
The Elder who spake out for him, nor less 
He who is more suspected still of faith 
In the new doctrine, Josej)h. Is not he, 
Who walks beliind them, one of the mad Twelve ? 
The High-priest wiU be glad to hear of this. 
1st Wit. Have thou no more to do with it. What good 
Would come thereof ? Ls Nicodemus one 
To stand in fear of Caiaphas ? Enough 
What is before thee. 



108 THE NEW CALVARY 



Enter 

NicoDEMUs and Joseph, 

followed hy Sevion. 

They place themselves behind the Subcenturion, 

Nicodemus nearest him. 

Nic. \loiD, to Jos. ] He is not yet gone. 
His head hangs down ; his face is not convuls'd. - 
Think'st thou he suffers ? \to Subc. 

Subc. Surely. He is brave, 
And will not show it. But behold, his head 
Again is lifted. He will sjjeak. 

Jos. That look 
In the sad, upturn' d eyes ! O God ! 

Subc. Be hush'd : 
His lips are open'd now. 

Jesus. My God ! my God ! 
How long wilt Thou forsake me ? ** 

Nic. 'T is too much. 
Simon is sobbing. And I wonder not. 
A word with thee, [to Siibc. 

Subc. I listen. But again, 
He is about to sj^eak. 

Jesus. Yet not my will, 
O Father ; thine be done.. 

Subc. The head once more 
Drops on the shoulder. Can you Jews hear that, 
And think this man's fate justify' d ? 

Nic. Thou then 



ACT V. sc. 2. 109 

Seest it not willingly ? 

Suhc. A brave man's death, 
lilet, not in fight, but thus ! What decm'st thou me ? 
I would I could withdraw. 

JV7f. There is no time 
Fix'd for his pangs' duration ? 

Stibc. No, indeed. 
The Procurator's self bade needless pain 
Be spar'd him. 

Ific. Hasten then his death. 
And bind me to thee ever. 

Subc. For thy sake, 
Who ai-t a brave man too, and didst thy best 
To rescue him, I will. What wilt thou have ? 
Nic. Here, in thy ear. [ Whisjiers. 

And give the man this daric, 
That his thrust fail not. 

The Subcenturion, leaning over, gives direction and the 
gold to one of the foremost soldiers, %nho icith his 
spear pierces Jesus'' left side. 
Jesus. Father, to thy hands 
I yield my spirit. 

Nic. Receive it, God ! 

Jos. Amen ! 



NOTES TO THE NEW CALVARY 



1. — p. 8. Few are less favor'd.] Several of the ancient 
Fathers, and not the least eminent among them, maintained that 
Christ was very far from being conspicuous for personal come- 
liness: thus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Clement of Alexandria; basing 
their belief upon the text of Isaiah (Ixiii. 2). Augustin assigned 
this humbleness of exterior as a reason why the Jews ventured 
to maltreat him. Jerom, on the contrary, uses an analogous 
argument ( the influence, namely, of the Saviour over the Apos- 
tles ) in assertion of his beauty ; and the less ancient of the Church- 
fathers have accumulated every aasthetic particular which they 
thought could add to the dignity of the Son of Man. See an in- 
teresting note to Origen's Sixth Book against Celsus: Op. ed. 
Delarue ( Paris, in fol. 1733 ) t. I. p. 689.— Justin Mavtyr: { Dial, 
con. Tryph. Jud.) speaks of Christ as plain in person, or even de- 
formed, aciSnij as the Scriptures announced that he should be, — 
wi al Fpa^ii etripvaaov : § 88. Op. iu Patrol. Grace, ed. JVIigne 
(Paris. 8° 1857) t. vi. col." 687. 

2. — P. 9. — the Essean John Jdmself — ] Josephus, in the 
story of his own life (§2), speaks of one Raniis (Banous,) who 
lived in the desert ( that is, in imcultivated places ), and clothed 



112 NOTES TO 



himself from the trees, and fed on wild herbs and fruits, washing 

JiimseJf frequently with cold water by way of purification ( ^vx9"? &s 

iSart Trji/ hj'^pav Kai T-qv vvKTa TToXXaicif \ovojxcvnv npo; ayvtiai'.* ) The 

* I have hesitated a good deal as to the rendering of this phrase, considering 
the place where it occurs. Hudson translates it " in vitas sanctimoniam,"— /or 
godliness of life ; Gelenius, "ad castitatem tuendam; " and Tan. Faber (as cited 
by Hudson), "ad puritatem castitatemque corporis tuendam." The usual sense 
of ayt'eia is certainly purity as between the sexes, chastity ; but to assign that 
as the object of Banus' ablutions, when his mode of living effected it better, 
seems unreasonable. The preposition admits of being rendered in accordance 
loiih ( as required by ; ) which would amount to the same thing if ayveia be 
translated chastity, but not if it be made to signify purity in a general sense. 
The difference is not unimportant, because of its bearing to the question whether 
Banus was not an Essean. Hudson's paraphrastic phrase, if accepted, would go 
far to sanction my belief that he was, although translate with Gelenius, in 
order to maintain his chastity, and there is a sufficient conjectural confir- 
mation, since chastity was a special point of observance with the Esseans, 
who, like the Shalers with us, whom they seem to have prototiTJed, did not 
marry — not at least the main order. See ilnrh vii. 3 & 4. The frequent 
nse of ablution is there shoviTi to have been common with those who affected 
sanctimony ; and the Esseans only carried the practice further, and made the 
lustration a primary rite of initiation into their order, like the baptism of John. 
I may add that ayreta has sometimes an active signification, and may be ren- 
dered, as I have ventured to do it, purification. 

Finally, see Matthew iii. 6, 7, and 11 & 13. From all of which we do not learn 
where John obtained the idea of purification by baptism (immersion in water), 
and it is evident that it was already a custom among certain of the Jews, whom 
I take to have been Esseans, and that others came to be initiated ( vv. 5, 6, ) in- 
cluding some of the two other sects ( ». 7 ). 

The connection of ablution with the observances of religion, and hence, or 
perhaps primarily, of bodilj' purity with the religious sentiment, may be said 
to be natural, especially in warm cUmates. Its origin however, so far as re- 
spects the Hebrews, may be traced to the Egyptians, whose priests, we are told, 
practised it, as Banus did, repeatedly both day and night. (1) 

(1) See Sir J. O. Wilkinson's Mannert and Customs 0/ the Aim. Efryptiarts (Lond. 8° 1837 and 1841), vol. 
iii. p. 358, — a work v?hich I have had the pleasure of reading only after the completion of these NotcB and 
while the drama was going through the press: which will explain why the information or illustration 
thence derived appears at the foot of a page, or at the end of a note, instead of being embodied in it as it 
deserved. 



THE NEW CALVARY 113 



conjecture of Dr. Hudson, mentioned by Wliiston in a note to 
the passage, that this Banus might well have been a follower 
of John the Baptist, is wholly gratuitous. Banus was more lilcely, 
what John the Baptist was, an ascetic of the kind we see more 
than once indicated in Scripture, as in the case of Elijah et al. 
and, from what Joscphus has implied, belonged to the Esseans, 
as I have supposed did also John. See in Whiston's translation, 
note p. 17 of Vol. I. , Oxford ed. ( § 2 of Life ) and p. 31 ( § 47 ). 
The strong resemblance between the usages, religious and so- 
cial, of the E/iso'i; Esscni, or Esseans and those of the primitive 
Christians did not escape the early Fathers of the Church, the 
most of whom, following the indication of Eusebius, affected to 
consider them and their kindred sect in Egypt ( the Therajwutes ) 
as actual followers of Jesus, whereas, as a matter of chronology 
merely, they both preceded him. See EusEB. Hist. Bed ii. c. 
17, and the note in refutation, col. 175 t. xx. Patr. Gra'C. ed. 
B. cit. *; SozOMENl H. E. i., c. 13, propeji/i., with the two anno- 
tations, col. 895 t. Ixvii. , P. G. Photius however regarded the 
coincidence more dispassionately. Cf. Mangey : not. ad p. 471 
Philon. Op. t. ii. Lond. in fol. 1743. See also Joseph. Antiq. 
Jud. xviii. c. i. p. 870, t. i. ed. Havercamp. Amstel. etc. in fol. 
1736. Among modem writers of Church History, the Prot- 
estant Gfrorer has not hesitated to say {Allgem. Kirclienge- 
scJiich. t. i. ( Stuttg. 8" 1844 ) p. 153 ), that he who does not see in 
the Essean Order the great forerunner of Christianity is utterly 
without capacity for history: "er moge von der Geschichte 
feme bleiben, denn aUer historische Sinn geht ihin ab. " He is 

* The Bishop gives it as hearsay (Aoyos ex^Ot t^at Philo had intercourse 
with Peter at Rome, wlio was then preacki»ff there ! whence he infers that tlie 
famous Jewish writer drew much of his information and presumed Christianity 
from that erudite apostle. In the same spirit, but less excusably, "Whiston as- 
sumes Josephns to have been an Elnonite Christian: note p. 548, vol. ii. 
Bohn's ed. — See subnote 1, p. 147. 



114 NOTES TO 



right : Christianity is nothing else than an offshoot of Esseanism, 
transplanted, and by peculiar advantages of soil and cultivation 
bearing such goodly fruit, as is to its original wild product what 
the plum is to the sloe, or the fleshy peach to the pulplesa 
almond. The learned and candid German is right, except per- 
haps in his ill-chosen epithet of great: but he forgot that intel- 
lectually none are so hopelessly blind as those who will not see, 
who dare not see, or who pretend not to see. The omission in. 
the New Testament of all mention of these Jewish Puritans, as 
the Esseans may be called, when the Pharisees and Sadducees 
are so often named, is certainly significant. Josephus, who 
really has not a word about Christ or Christians {see below, note 
21), paints admiringly and lovingly the habits of the Esseans, as 
PhUo, with a like interest, does of the Therapeutes. The former 
of these writers is, in the English version, in almost all private 
libraries. Not to adduce other particulars which will startle, 
perhaps painfully, every reader who familiar %vith the New Tes- 
tament meets for the first time with the portraiture referred 
to, there are the lustration by water and the comvion meal; the 
latter of which bears a strildng resemblance to that of the 
Christians as described by Justin. The water ceremony is pro- 
nounced by Gfrorer (I. c. p. 151) the true historical migin of 
Christian baptism. It is indisputably. WTio looks for any other 
errs against one of the first principles of philosophy, and darken.<j 
his windows to light a farthing candle at noonday. 

3. — P. 20. — " the beginning " — ] AUuding to the first words 
of Genesis, by which that book was designated with the Hebrews. 
"In the beginning, the gods [clohi/n, pi. Heb.] created the heaven 
and the earth." Probably a purely Egyjotian sentence,* taken 

* Cf. Gen. 1.26: .."Let its make man in 02(r image, after our like- 
ness ". . . ; also III. 23 : . . " Behold the man is become as one of us.". . No 
reasoning can deprive these phrases of their simple meaning, which implies, and 



THE NEW CALVARY 115 



perhaps from tlie sacred hooks mentioned by Manetlio ; and in 
like manner that which follows, which indicates, so far as we 
know and may conjecture from what we know, the cosmogony of 
the Egyptian priesthood. See Wilkinson's ^?ic. Egyps. 2d. ser. vol. 
1. pp. 273-0 and ii. 134 sq. ; also, ib. i. 337 at bottom, the citation 
from Plutarch, which wUl remind the reader of a theory preva- 
lent among men of science in his own day. Cf. Job^ xxxviii, 9. 

4. — P. 21. — providoii — am2)le as Solomon'' s.'] 1 Kings iv. 
22, 23. 

5. — P. 22. Tour Moses taugM you lore After the fables of the 
priests of On.] Acts vii. 22. — It is not unlikely that he was 
himself a priest in the City of the Sun, as Manetho would have 
it (see Agst. Ajnon I. 26, ) and as is apparent from the internal 
evidence of his o\\xl laws.* The Egyptian historian says he was 

In a manner indicating a prevalent opinion not admitting of dispute, a belief in 
polytheism. The Septuagint have indeed chosen to read 6 ©eo5, God, wherever 
the Hebrew copies have the plural as above : but they have not been able to per- 
vert or mystify the plain signification of the last of these sentences : ISou A6a/i 
yeyof€>' <os cU ef y] ixiav • 

* No man ever made those laws who was not bred a priest, and who had not 
come from a hierarchy that exercised the most absolute power over the minds of 
the vulgar. The tyranny of his legislation, which, after his Egyptian models, 
regulates even the pettiest details of the household, the diet and the dress, put- 
ting thus a thousand chains of discipline and religious form upon both mind and 
body, has perhaps never been equaled save in the moral and religious vassalage 
once effected by the church of Rome. Besides, if he was not a priest and of 
Egypt, what becomes of the assertion that he was instructed in all the wisdom 
of its people ? The jealousy with which that exclusive possession of its hierarchy 
was guarded, a possession to whose full enjojonent not even all of its own body were 
admitted (i). would not have been relaxed in favor of one of a degraded and sub- 
ject race, even could there have been found the opportunity of acquiring it, occu- 
pied as he Is described to have been in his very doubtful history. Yet Josephus 

(1) Cs. Clem. Alex. Slrom. V. c. vll. ad init. (Op. In Migne P. a. Ix. col. 08.) 



IIG NOTES TO 

bom in Heliopolis and was named Osai'sipTi, from tlie god Osiris, 
but himself changed his name afterward to Moses, ib.* 

The word Moses ( Mouses ), which we are told signified in Egyp- 
tian Wate7'-saDed,j; may have suggested the pretty fable of the 
floating cradle, or may have been devised to correspond and give 
permanence as well as verisimilitude to that invention. Or again, 

has dared to make him a successful general under the reigning Pharaoh ( Afit. J. 
II. X. 1.), — in the same spirit in which he assigns to simple Abram the mastery 
of arithmetic and astronomy, which that patriarch is made to have imparted to 
the Egyptians, who at a later day enlightened the Greeks, ( ib. I. viii. 2 ) ; a prepos- 
terous fable, which Eusebius repeats, citing in confirmation Eupolemus, out of 
Polyhistor, with the improvement that Abram was the inventor of those sciences 
( Prcep. Evang. Op. in Migne P. G. xxi. cc. 706 sq. ) ; whereas, apart from a hun- 
dred other reasons that might be assigned against it, were it worth the arguing, 
there is the probable fact, derived from a better authoritj', that the Chaldeans of 
Babylon were originally a colony of Egyptians who can-ied with them thither the 
science of their priests. (2) I imagine that the Cambridge Professor of Mathe- 
matics would have had something to say thereon, if his object were not always 
to justify rather than correct his mendacious historian. 

* Aeyerai 6' oTi., K. T. A. Bid it is said that the priest icho laid the foundations 
of their state and latcs. by birth a Heliopolitan, ire name Osarsijih, from the god 
Osiris in Heliopolis, lohen he had gone over to this people changed his name a7id 
was called Moijses. Contr. Apionem : 1. i. § 26, ad fin. Jos. Op. t. vi. ed. Richter, 
12°. Lips. 1826. 

On ( pron. own ) and Heliopolis were one, according to the Seventy : ( . . icai 
tlv, 1) e(TTLv 'HAiouTToAis. Exod. i. 11. ) For its reputation as a seat of learning, see 
Wilkinson. IV. 301, sq. 

t From ' ' Mo," water, and " Uses ", the rescued therefrom. Jos. Aiit. II. ix. 6. — 
Elsewhere, he divides the word differently : to &' a\r)9€i ovo/j-a, k. t. A. — but 
the true name indicates tlie saved from the water, ifoyses ; for the Egyptians call 
water Hoy [ Mwi; ]. Apion. i. 31. prope fin. It is not an uncommon thing for 
Josephus to have two ways of teUing one thing. 

(2) ♦a<7t Se Kai Tovc ev BafivXcuv XaX^atoi/f , awoixovq AiYWTttcv ovrai;. rrv So^av fx^tv rriv wept tt^c 
aar/ioXoyiac. Trapa ruiv Uptov /^aSovTai; Twv At-yvmicuv. DIOD. SIC. I. Ixxxi. p. 240 t. 1. Wesseling. 
ed. (8» Bijiont. 1793. ) With which compare ib. c. xiviii ad. init. p. 79. 

I have argued above on the assumption that there was such a person as the Chaldean Abram, whereas 
1 have very great doubts whether such ever existed except in the sacred traditions of the Egyptians 
respecting the patriarchs of their own race, -whose first man was molded of red earth in that Garden which 
was surrounded by the branching Nile in what is Icnown as the Delta. 



THE NEW CALVARY 117 



the son of Jochebed may have so called himself, or have been so 
called by acclamation of the people, in what must have been their 
famihar tong^ie, the Egyptian, to denote their presentation, when, 
by the swift in-rushing of the tide, the "Memphian chivalry" 
were prevented from pursuing over the ford. 

6. — P. 23. ^"itness the death-fruit and theserpenfs grille, etc.] 
Whence Moses, or whoever wrote the first book of the Pentateuch, 
drew the fable of the origin of sin, cannot now be knowTi ; for we 
have only fragments of the Egyptian historians. The Babylonian 
priest, Berosus, who lived about three centuries before Josephus, 
had, as we find in this latter writer (c. Ap. i. 19,) the story of 
Noah and the Ark. In all probabihty, he drew it, if not directly 
yet through the Chaldean records, from the same sources as the 
author of Genesis, that is fi'om the sacred books of Egypt ; and it 
is safe to conclude, that, in the account of the Creation (with 
which almost all historians, down to the comparatively modem 
date of the Middle Ages, thought themselves bo\md to begin their 
books,) his narrative, and likewise that of Manetho, and the 
thousand years older Phenician history of Sanchoniathon, would 
have been found to coiTespond with that of the Hebrews. The 
darkness of the undistinguishable deep ; the vast void of the tm- 
animated and yet chaotic earth ; the unseparated and encompas- 
sing waters, over which hovered, as if brooding, the procreative 
Spirit ; all are, as indicated in a previous note, ideas of the old 
Egyptians, * which found their way to the philosophy of younger 
nations, initiating the hypotheses of their poets and sowing the 
seeds of the speculations of their sages. And we may fairly assume 
that the Garden of Eden, notwithstanding the Hebraic contradic- 
tion in the names and course of its putative rivers, was, as already 

* See Wilkinson as before; 2d. S. II. last 1 on p. 134, sq. : and compare, for 
the remainder of the sentence, Ovid's fine opening of the Metamorphoses. 



118 NOTES TO 



suggested, placed, by those fanciful cosmogonists, between the 
divergmg branches of the Nile. 

It may be objected that the serpent was an object of religious 
veneration in Egypt, a symbol of the power of its kings, an orna- 
ment on the heads of its divinities and a special emblem of the 
deity Cneph or Cnouph himself, who was the principal and oldest, 
if not, as Plutarch supposes, the sole god of the Thebais, the 
Creative Spirit of the Universe.* But it is to be observed, in the 

* It was perhaps this serpent, the asp, the emblem of Cneph, which Moses, 
inconsistently ( though not for the first time ) with his own Commandment, made 
out of brass and set up, on the journey from Mt. Hor by the Red Sea. Num. 
xxi. 9. (1) Cf. 2 Kings, xviii. 4. 

Cneph was the ayaBo^ SaL/xuiv, the good demon, of the Phenicians. (2) Vid. 
Euseb. Prceparation. Evang. I. x, & III. xi, ( cc. 88 & 206 sq. ap. Migne. ed. 
PT G. cit. t. xxi.) He tells us, the Egyptians, when depicting the world [the 
STin, rather,] foi-m a circle, colored so as to represent at once the appearance of 
air and the bright redness of fire, wherein the serpent, haiok-formed, lies extended, 
as if holding it together ; the whole figure resembling the letter 0, and the serpent 
signifying the good demon : . . . ot AtyuTrriot, . . . tov Koay-ov ypa<l>ovTe^, 
■nepi(i>epy) kvkKov aepoeiSrj Kai, nvpiovov x"P<''<''<''Ovcrt kctc /iteo'oi' reranevov o<j>i.v 
t6paKO/xop(^oi/. Kai ecrrt to vav (7X'7fia <«'S to irap' riiJ.iv ©jjTa- TOf fiev kvkKov 
KOtTfi-ov tirjvvovTCi, Tov Se /xeaov o<j>iv o^vveKTiKOV tovtov ayaBov 6ai/u.ora (rrjixai- 
V0VT6S. The hawk-forin must apply only to the head ; for it is not easy to see 
how otherwise the extended serpent could be made to resemble the connecting bar 
or cross-line of the Greek letter, even if it could remain a serpent at all. (s) 

Thus, the old writers made the asp to be a representation of Cneph himself, and 
not his symbol. But the moderns have judged better, as observing and compar- 
ing more closely ; and Sir Gardner Wilkinson has given us an image of Cneph 
with a ram's head. Such an image could not, I think, have existed in the days 
of a pure deism, but must have had a much later creation, when the progress of 
superstition had corrupted with the perversions of a manifest idolatry the current 
faith, tliat faith which though obscured was not forgotten, when Moses imbibed 
its precepts, if not orally, yet from the arcana of the sacred Viooks. 

(1) Sec Wilkinson's account of the Cer&etea or Horned Snalie of Upper E^pt,— vol. V. p. 246 : and 
compare Josepliua' story of tbe snalces which beset the march of Moses, when an Egyptian general, — Ant, 
n. X. 2. 

('2) This the modern archxologist 1 have so often found It a satisfaction to cite at the close of these 
Notes would appear to consider aa error of Eusebius*. See Anc, Egyp. It. p. 299. 

(S) Cs. as in subnote 2. 



THE NEW CALVARY 119 



first place, tliat the reptile of Genesis is spoken of as but a rep- 
tile, ( "Now the serpent was more subtle tban any beast of the 
field which the Lord God had made " * ) ; and in the next, that 
the author or authors of Genesis, writing in the iconoclastic spirit 
of Moses, and long after his generation had passed away, may 
have wished to hold up the serj^ent as an object of special detesta- 
tion, because of its prominence and almost constant appearance 
among the symbols of idolatry ; and they may be supposed to 
have altered in some respects a fable which there is every reason 
to believe had its origin with the priests of F,gypt, and no reason 
whatever to maintain to have originated with the inferior, if not 
derivate race of the Jews. The form of the globe, where small, 
with the accompanying, or sometimes partially enfolding asp, so 
common in the Egyptian monuments, is such as to remind one 
forcibly of the story of the fruit ' ' whose mortal taste brought 
death into the world " ; and if the invention of the fable is Jewish, 
it may have been suggested by that familiar image. 

Further, there was a snake among the idols, which was not the 
emblem of a beneficent deity, far less the representation of a good 
spirit, but, as with some other nations, what may be called a 
natural type of the secret, insidious and maleficent spirit of evil, 
or of the Evil One himself, precisely as it is in the Jewish fable, 
if there the serpent is indeed meant to be the incarnation of any 
demon. f 

* A belief ( that of the serpent's subtlety ) which may have helped to give him 
his emblematic impoi-tance in Egypt, where the secrecy, celerity and noiseless- 
ness of his movemenis, so unlike to those of other animals, may have been 
thought to symbolize the mysterious operations of the Deity ; a feeble and inade- 
quate type to us certainly, but not to that people whose gods tvere born in their 
gardens. "As wise as serpents" is a well-known phrase of the New Testament, 
which alludes to a long-prevalent idea with the Jews, derived doubtless from 
Egypt, and which probably our own deri\ ed religion has transmitted to us. 

t Cs. Wilkinson again, vol. V. p. 243 sqq. I am glad to see that he discredits 
the popular notion that the serpent biting his own tail ( an image which he ap- 



120 NOTES TO 



And the man molded^ etc. J Egypt was the mother of sculpture 
as well as architecture ( unless India was before her ia both, ) and 

pears not to have met with in early monuments ) was with the Egyptians an 
emblem of eternity. If there was anything more than simple fancy or conve- 
nience that dictated this unnatural position. I should like to believe it was meant 
to typify the vexation of the Evil One after the partial defeat of his practices on 
our first parents, and that the enfolded globe stood for the fatal fruit. But such 
a conjecture would be in contradiction to all that we know from the records and 
observations of ancient authors, as well as the discoveries of modern travelers, 
and would find nowhere a basis of support in any of them. (') 

Maimonides tells us that the Jewish doctors made the Devil to have appeared 
to Eve not in the form of a serpent, but mounted upon one the size of a camel. 
More Nevochim. Part. II. cap. xxx. pp. 280, sq. Buxtorf. ( Basil. 4to, 1629.) 
The passage will be found translated in the notes to the "Epistle to Satan", — 
Arthur Carryl, Etc. pp. 232, 3. 

Clemens Alexandrinus ventures to suppose that it was the name Eva which 
was shouted in the Dionysia, and would have it that that name signifies, when 
aspirated ( Beva ), a female serpent. Cohort, ad Gentes Cap. ii. Op. vol. I. 
(in Migne t. vlii. c. 72 sq., and note ib.) If any importance could be attached to 
such a conjecture, which is purely fanciful, it would help to confirm my position ; 
for the Bacchic rites came from Egypt. I mention it merely as a philological 
curiosity. 

(1) With my self-persuasion, or indeed without it, that the story of Kden ia Egyptian, I am tempted to 
tbilil£ that the idea of the (re« o/Aaouj/cdfe may have had its fanciful suggestion in the emblematic, or at 
least sacred character attached to the persea {-nepaia), a tree no longer extant, but sulllcientl^ 
described by ancient writers. See Willtinson as above, pp. 392 i 406, who conjectures that Plutarch ( 7>. 
et 01.) had reference really to thia tree and not to the peach {nepaiKyj, amt/gdaltta Persica. Lin.l» 
when speaking of its sacredness in Egypt and lil^ening its fruit in shape to a heart and its leaves to the 
human (on^-uc,— although the peach fruit, which ia thought to be derivtd by artificial culture from the 
almond, may have had originally that ovoid shape, and its leaves too have been more rounded at the citrem* 
ity than they are now. Theophrastus indeed tejls us that the fruit of the persea, whil4; like the pear in size* 
was oblong, or very long, in form, npo^axpot;, like an almond, afj.tjy$aXuiS^^, He speaks of the tree as an 
evergreen, atLtpvWov ( ever-leaved ), contrasting it in that respect with the pear-tree, which he says 
it iiery much resembled in leaves and flowers and boughs, calling it previously a large and beautiful tree. 
He adds that the color of the fruit was herbaceous, or dark green, nowSei, the ptilp extremely jiceer and 
pleasant and digestible, so that it might be eaten of freely without inconvenience,— ovSev yap tvoxXtt iroXw 
npoaevfyiaf^evov. Hist. Plant IV. ii. Op. I. p. 123. ed. Schneider ( Lips. 8°. 1818.) See too, ib., note 5, p. 
284 t. III. Dioscorides has but little to aay about the persea, except that certain writers had related that 
the fruit was very poisonous (a) in its native Persia, but had become edible after transplantation to the soil 
of Egypt : Mat. Med. I. ad fin. p. 166, t. I. ed. Kiihn. ( Lips. e». 1829) : a fact which, with due qualifica- 
tion, is not unlikely in itself and makes it stiil more probable thai it was, like the peach, of kin to the 
almond, if not derived from the almond by some process or accident of cultivation that left it In a sort of 
transition-state between the almond and the peach. In Ferrario, — Cost. Ant. e Mod. — Africa I. tip 
( Firenze, H^. 1824,) — will be found, gathered from ancient authors, a captivating account of this sacred and 
mystic, yet favorite Egyptian fruit-tree. 

(a) AvaipcTtKoVt deadly ; probably an exaggeration. 



THE NEW CALVARY 121 



the mctliotl of the sculptor in forming his models of fictile clay 
would suggest the fancy of Adam's being fashioned of red earth. 

7.— P. 23. Moses ask\l, What etc.] See Exod. iii. 13, 14. 

8. — P. 25. The Unutterable — ] Oyojia yap toi appnT<.> Oeo ovScn 

c^ct eiiTciv ct Ss rij To^princtcv eivat Xcyciv, ptprjiic Trjv oomtov paviav, 

( For it belongs to none to give name to the unspeakable God: but 
if a7iy should dare to say it exists [the name — i. e. that He has a 
name], he ravet tcith incurable madness. Justin. Mart. xix)ol. I. 
61. {Patr. Gr. VI. 423.) See also Apol. II. 6. {ib. 451.) 

This of course means any actual name that belongs to Him as 
the personal name to a human individual ; for the appellations 
we use are merely indicative of His attributes, power, etc. ; and 
Justin so explains it. But the Jews carried their religious reti- 
cence so far as to shun, those who professed peculiar veneration, 
the utterance of even the names by men appropriated, as for ex- 
ample Ihoah (Jehovah, ) — cf. Jos. Ant. II. xii. 4: which I main- 
tain to be a reasonable awe, however misused in super-sanctity by 
the Pharisees. 

But in aU of this they had the lesson, as in most other things, 
from Egj'pt, where even the gods of idolatry were, some of them, 
too holy to be openly designated. Thus Herodotus finds it unlaw- 
ful in his work to pronounce the name of Osiris ; though perhaps 
he may mean to imply some particular appellation which was given 
to that prominent divinity by the priests among themselves and 
before the initiated, but never revealed to the common world. 

9. — P. 26. When Ziimn, etc.] Numbers, xxv. 

10. — P. 27. — the captive pi'ophet saio, etc.] JSJzekicl, viii. 

11. — P. 28. — Gossen—] Goshen. So in the version of 
Vol. VI.— 6. 



122 NOTES TO 



Castellio. The Seventy make it Fco-t/i Apu/Jiur, Gessem of Arabia. 
A commentator in Herries' Bible says it is so designated, as lying 
near to a part of Arabia, — which is absurd, — but quotes Shaw 
to the effect that Ramesses or Goshen was the HeHopolitan Nome, 
taking in that part of Arabia [?] which was partly bounded by 
the Nile and partly by the Red Sea. In Genesis xlvi. 29, it is 
said,—" Joseph . . went up^ avePn, to meet Israel his father". . 
And this meeting, according to the Septuagint and to Josephus, 
took place at Heroopolis : and the latter says the King gave Jacob 
permission to reside in HeliopoUs.* How then could Goshen be 
in Arabia ? or, if it was, what becomes of the passage of the Red 
Sea? 

If that charming story of Joseph's fortunes is true, Joseph 
himself must have resided in the royal city ; and he is made to 
tell his father and brethren that they should be near him : though 
how they could be so near the coui't and yet so far from the 
Egyptian i^eoi^le as not to give these offence ( see Gen. xlvi. ad 
fin. ) is not apparent. Again, Tvdthout this proximity, without 
indeed the actual residence of the Israelites within the city, the 
events could not have transpired that are pretended to have sig- 
naUzed a later period, nor cotdd the departing tribes have spoiled 
their oppressors. But if we reject that story and the whole fable 

* Ant. Jucl. II. vii. 6: where (in the city), curiously enough, to make plausi- 
ble the assertion, he tells us the king's cattle were pastured. Heroopolis was 
midway between Arsinoe or Suez, the Pelusiotio mouth of the Nile and HeliopoUs. 
This latter city was at the apex of the Delta ; and Memphis, which is supposed 
to have been the royal capital, as it was the metropolis of the whole country, lay 
on the west bank of the Nile, below it about fifteen miles. We have seen that 
Moses was said to have been a priest at Heliopolis, which, if his people were there 
settled for over two centuries [credat Judxus)^ might easily have been. At all 
events, in that city, renowned not for pasturage but for learning, from whose 
broad, not deep, nor quite pellucid fountains both Pythagoras and Plato largely 
drew, he may well be supposed to have imbibed a portion, if not "all" of "the 
wisdom of the Egyptians." 



THE NEW CALVARY 123 



of the crossing of the Red Sea, then Goshen or Gessem might well 
be ia that part of Arabia which had been conquered by the Pha- 
raohs. And so placed, — that is, the people who left Egj'pt under 
Moses occupj-ing such a part of the Egji^tian realm, ( which is the 
more probable because they were keepers of flocks and the Egyp- 
tians had a national hatred of all shepherds, ) * — their wandering 
southward after the exodus is no longer unaccountable. 

So much for the accredited hLstory of the Hebrews. But, 
taking into consideration what is said of their servile condition 
and of their being employed to build certain cities, I am more 
than half -persuaded that Manetho tells from his countiy's archives 
the straighter tale, and that Moses himself was infected with 
leprosy ; whence, and not because of Aaron's seniority, he pre- 
ferred the latter to the high-priesthood. 

12. — P. 20. nis stainless me.ssenger?] The monstrousness of 
the invention is not a httle increased by this absurd particular ; 
for, if the deed was done by the angel, it could not have been 
necessary to mark the doors that were to be avoided. Josephus 
takes good care to say nothing of this marking, although he speaks 
of the destruction of the first-bom of the Egyptians and the pass- 

* In the last verse of the chapter, in Joseph's caution to his father about the 
occupation of his family, we have the territorial designation repeated : iva. Kara- 
Koia-riTe ev yji rfo-e/a, ApajSias, — that ye may dwell in the land of Gessem in Ara- 
bia. This looks suspicious. They were to be sent thither, or to request to be, as 
out of the way of the Egyptians: pSe\vyiia yap eaTti' AiyuTrnois T-a? Troi^trji' 
npoparuiv for, continues the royal favorite, an abomination to the Egyptians is 
every pastor of flocks. (') 

(1) BtffXvy^a Is an exprpsnion of the strongest disgnst and contempt. Litcralljr. a stench in iht noS' 
tTxlt ; or even peditum by its etymology, fjSetu, — according to the scurril practical mode of expressing su- 
preme yet droU contempt, among the rabblement of all nations. The classical reader will readily bring to 
mind the 

" Hodle triceslma sabbata : tin' tu 
Curtit JudaeiM oppedcre 7 " 

or Horace : • coarse bnt strong witticism that would have suited the dirt of Swift, yet found like a laugh*. 
ble squint in that bright-featured little satire, the IXIh of Book I. ; where see, by the by, ( in Zetinii «f. 
Lond. &°. 1600,) the curious annotation on curtit. It has an amusing bearing on the subiect matter of otxr 
Nol« 16. 



124 NOTES TO 



ing-over of the Israelites. See Antiq. II. xiv. 6 : where he also 
teUsus, not that his people boiTowed, but that the Egyptians freely 
gave them, both those who were friends or neighbors and those 
who were glad to expedite their departure. 

The sophistry by which Whiston {note p. 154, vol. 1. Oxf. ed.) 
endeavors to soften the act of the Hebrews, by making the gifts a 
pay and reward of their long service to their Egyptian masters, is 
a familiar kind of Jesuitism which has done irretrievable mischief 
to morals in every like indefensible record in the Bible.* 

13. — P. 29. — the mystic stone of Truth — ] " Diodorus and 
JElian both teU us, that the high priest of the Egyptians wore a 
precious stone about his neck, which was called Truth ; and this 
is the same name by which the LXX translate Thummim?'' f 

* The translator jusfc-named cames it so far as to justify the daughters of Lot, 
and, by Implication, incest in general under certain circumstances. See his last 
note to chap, xi. Book I. A. J. 

t Wilkinson says, of his favorite Egyptians : " When a case was brought for 
trial, it was customary for the arch-judge to put a golden chain round his neck, 
to which was suspended a small figure of Tnith, ornamented with precious stones. 
This was in fact a representation of the goddess who was worshipped under the 
double character of Truth and Justice, and whose name, Thmei, ["hence the 
d€/tii9 of the Greeks," ] appears to have been the origin of the Hebrew Thum- 
mim ; a word, according to the Septuagint translation, implying tnith, and bear- 
ing a further analogy in its plural termination. And what makes it more re- 
markable is, that the chief priest of the Jews, who before the election of a king 
was also the judge of the nation, was alone entitled to wear this honorary badge ; 
and the Thummim, like the Egyptian figure, was studded with precious stones of 
various colours." vol. II. 26-28. The figure there given of the goddess will be 
found to correspond with the kneeling figures of the Ark mentioned presently. 
The author tells us in a note : " Lord Prudhoe has very ingeniously suggested that 
the Urim is derived from the tico asps or basilisks, %t,rei^ which were the emblems 
of royalty in Egypt. Ouro is the Egyptian word implying a king." But see 
thereon 2d. ser. vol. II. p. 28, where Wilkinson gives his own opinion, which in- 
clines to that of those who consider Urlnx and Thuminim to signify " lights and 
perfections " or " light and truth," Thus Castellio, instead of Urim and Thunir 



THE NEW CALVARY 125 



Note to V. 30, cliap. xxviii, Exod., in Hemes' Bible (Lond. fol. 
1781. ) " The ga-and ornaments that wore to be worn by the high 
priest may sei-ve as a striking proof of the hardheartcdness of the 
Jews. Tliey had scon the religious rites of the Egyptians," 
[during 315 years it would bo strange if they had not,] " and as 
their notions were carnal, so God permitted them " [observe this 
conception of the Deity !] "to use ceremonies, which, although 
merely typical, could only captivate the senses." Practical lie- 
fleet, ib. Thus it is that simple theologians reason, having 
always before their eyes the one aim which is never to be lost 
sight of, the one belief which must be made triumphant at any 
cost of dissimulation, or untruth, or, as above, of degradation 
of the Divine character. The clerical annotator saw the facts 
that arose directly before him, recorded them, then, shutting his 
eyes, took counsel of positive faith and stopped his ears to the 
suggestions of understanding. Hence his Reflections are the 
naiTow orthodoxy of a sermon. Why cannot the religion of 
Moses be left to stand as it was ? the pure deism taught by a 
priest whose disgust at the multitudinous and degrading forms 
in which his fellows had wrapped the primitive faith was inten- 
sified and made active by personal resentment, but who was not 
able to wean himself, or at least his people, from the observ- 
ances, and pomp of ceremony and of decoration, they had been 
accustomed to, and certainly not to abandon the trickery, even 

mim, has in Levit. viii. 8. ''■ ClarUa-i et integi-itas", — unless he uses Clarltas in 
a jjoculiar (not classical) figui'ative sense, to correspond with his second phrase, 
as the Septuagint employ 5?)A<oo-ts, ■inanifeMation, declaration : koi en-eOjjKev 67ri 
TO Aoyfioi' Trfv SrjAwo-tv k ai rifv aXrtd ei av : and he placed upon 
the breastplate [Aoyetov so called, I presume, because it was the seat of the sup- 
posed oracle] opennemi and truth. In Herries' Bible the commentator, to my 
surprise, appears to favor as "the most reasonable" the view of Hottinger (prob- 
ably the Swiss professor of theology of that name in the last quarter of the 17th 
century ) that the words refer merely to the perfectncss and brightness of the 
etones wliich Moses had been commanded to select. 



126 NOTES TO 



wMle revolting from it, that was the practice and the sup- 
posed strength of his order. Moses' great merit lay in his 
persistent, vehement and even violent hatred of idolatry. To 
this was owing his virtues as a leader and law-giver, but to this 
also his crimes, his blasj^hemous assumption of familiarity with 
the Deity, and his puerile tricks and artifices, — if these, as I 
have just implied, were not rather the result of his education 
and consequent habits as a priest. 

SpJdngian, as applied to Cherubim ( 3d verse below, ) is in allu- 
sion to the usually supposed composite nature of those figures. 
But this is only expressed in one of the Prophets of a subsequent 
age, and perhaps imphed in one of the Psalms. The Penta- 
teuch describes them not, except so far as they appear to have 
conformed to those of Egypt. Josephus says ( Ant. III. vi. 5, 
Whiston,) that they were "flying creatures; but their form was 
not like that of any of the creatures which men have seen, 
though" (he adds with terrible audacity) "Moses had seen such 
beings near the throne of God." Compare this with the descrip- 
tion in Ezekiel's vision, where one of the four faces was that of a 
"cherub", without its being said what that was. We might 
thence conclude that the general opinion ai^proaches the truth, 
and that they were of composite form, which I have sought to 
designate, at the same time with their Egyptian origin, by calling 
them Sphingian. But the difficulty of conceiving such shapes in 
such an attitude as to cover with their wings the mercyseat 
between them has made me hesitate, while correcting the press, 
whether I should not change the epithet, to "shadowing" 
for example ; and my perplexity has only been increased by find- 
ing in Wilkinson's work (p. xi, vol. vi, also p. 276, vol. v.) a 
vignette of the Egyptian ark and cherubim and half -descending cur- 
tain ( vail), which probably gives us the prototype of the Holy of 
Holies of the Hebrews. In this wood-cut, the " Rjhx^ creatures " 



THE NEW CALVARY 127 



are represented as human figures * kneeling in face of each other, 
with wLug^ that appear to occupy the pUicc of arms, or to be 
attached to and to conceal the anns, and which extend forward 
until they touch each other above and nearly so below in the pic- 
ture, as if to cover or protect the sacred emblem between them, 
lie who refuses to see in this portion of the Egyptian sacred boat 
the probable representation of what Josephus professes not to 
have knowTi is cither very bigoted or very dull. 

I am inclined therefore to think, notwithstanding the epithet 
which I have suffered to remain, that the figures of the Jewish 
cherubs were purely human, except in the wings ; the more so 
that it is probable, that, had they been, as Ezekiel appears to 
represent the cherubim of his vision, a multiform or many-faced 
creature, the -writer of Exodus would have thought it necessary to 
BO particularize them, f 

Unreck''d the p)'oJiiMtio)i from the Mount — ] The walls of 

* Females, representing, as already saicT after Wilkinson, the goddess of Truth 
and Justice. It is Likely then, that the " face of a cherub " spoken of in Ezekiel, 
that is the cherubic visage proper, was that of a woman, which may be the rea- 
son why Josephus pretends not to know what it or indeed what the entire figure 
was. 

t By the by, the description in Exodus is, as applied to the Tabernacle of the 
desert, either mere invention or gross exaggeration. To have gotten so much 
gold, not to speak of what was used for the various ves.sels, and the altar and the 
candlesticks, the Israelites must have robbed the Egyptians of more than their 
jewelry. The picture was probably designed by the WTiter ( who could not be 
Moses ) after the model of the Temple. Compare the two descriptions, Ex. xxxv", 
rxxvii, and 1 Kingn vi & vii. But even then, what quantity of gold would it 
take to make two images of human shape with extended wings, supposing the forais 
to have not been more than four feet in height ? And, admitting the quantity 
as attainable, how could the ingots or mass have been " beaten, out of one piece," 
into the shape of any living thing, e.xcept perhaps a fish, or a crocodile, or a ser- 
pent ? The graven images of what was not the likeness of anything in heaven 
above, or in the earth beneath, or in the water nnder the earth, were probably, 



128 KOTES TO 



Solomon's temple were covered all over, "within and without " 
(1 Kings vi. 29,) " with carved figures of cherubims" ; and the 
" sea of bronze " was supported by twelve oxen, the favorite wor- 
ship of Heliopolis. Yet, in a later age, men got mad because a 
Roman eagle was put up on the outside of Herod's temple ; per- 
haps, because it was a Roman eagle, — for Josephus says {u. s.) 
there were eagles [vultures ?] as well as huUs and lions, of graven 
work, on the stands of the lavers.* 

14. — P. 30. — when Abr am saw, etc.] Genesis, xv. 17. 

15. — P. 30. And more profane, ye put the seal of God On the 
old custom in Rameses tavght, etc.] Josephus himself, who, with 
all his enthusiasm for his people, and with all that blindness of 
national bigotry which makes him copy the idlest stories, as I 
have incidentally already shown, and indulge in the most extrava- 
gant and self-contradictory exaggeration in the statistical and 

like those made by Solomon (1 Kitigx vi,) of wood covered over with thin plates 
or leaves of beaten gold. So we have the calf of Aaron described as of molten 
gold, although it was presently burned in the fire and reduced to powder. 

Josephus, who brmgs down the height of Solomon's cherubs from ten to five 
cubits, has the folly to tell his heathen readers that they were " of solid gold ", 
adding, in a like magniloquent spirit, " and, to say all in one word, he left no part 
of the temple, neither internal nor external, but what was covered with gold." 
Ant. vin. iii. 3, (Whiston.) See too his account of the golden vessels of all sorts 
in Solomon's temple. At all of which marvels we need not lift up our hands, 
since we are taught, in the sacred books he drew from, that at the dedication of 
that temple there were sacrificed 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. 1 Kings, 
viii. 63. 

* It may be another reason why the historian affects ignorance of the form 
of the cherubim, that he was conscious that the "flying creatures" had a 
look of idolatry, while the oxen and lions and bulls and eagles ( the Scripture 
says, — Gk. Lat. and Eng., — lions, oxe?i and Cherubim ), however contrary to the 
2d Commandment, had not, to those who knew not or cared not to remember their 
origin. 



THE NEW CALVARY 129 



descriptive parts of their history,* Josephus, who evinces the 
influence of contact with the more cultivated heathen nations, 

* In Xumbeni, which may perlmps be considered a genuine book of Moses, the 
fighting men alone ('-all that were able to go forth to war in Israel") are set 
down at 603,500 : chap. ii. 32. ( In the previous chap., i. 40, at 003,550 ; a dif- 
ference immaterial.) This was in the 13th month after the exodus, and from this 
number the large body of Levites ( 8580 : ib. iv. 40, 48 ) was excluded ( i. 47, ii. 
33.) According to the chronology in the margin of our Bibles, and to Josephus 
( Aiitiq. II. XV.,) the length of the sojourn of the children of Israel had been 215 
years ; but in the Bible itself it is stated at 430 years ( Exod. xii. 40, 41 ) ; which is 
explained by counting from the transient visit of Abraham ( Jos. ubi «.), Jacob's 
grandsire, who departed from Haran when he was 75 years old ( Gen. xii. 4.) 
But the chronology would make him to have consumed about 3 years between 
tliat tune (B. C. 1921 ) and the time when he left Egypt (B. C. 1918.) Now, 
Isaac's birth occurring 22 yy. after Abraham's return, Abraham being then 100 
yy. old, and Jacob being born when Isaac was 00 yy. old ( Gen. xxv. 26,) it follows 
that when Jacob was born it was 00 + 22 =: 82 yy. since Abraham's visit to Egypt, 
and Jacob being 130 ( ib. xlvii. 9 and 28 ) when he went dorni to reside there per- 
manently, wo have, according to the data of Scripture itself, 130 + 82 = 212 yy. 
to be subtracted from the 430, which would leave us 218 as the actual period of 
the dwelling in Goshen. (') A family of 70 persons ( Gen. xlvi. 26, 27,) to have 
multiplied even in that period to such an extent that 603,.500 able-bodied men 
" from 20 years and upward " could be collected out of their aggregate, is hardly 
less wonderful than Abraham and Isaac's living respectively to 175 and 180 years. 
If we allow that out of every seven persons one male is capable of miUtary ser- 
vice, then we should have, with such a count, 4,224,500 as the population. Yet 
supposing a people to double itself by natural increase every 20 years, which is an 
exceptionally large ratio, we should have the increase for 70 persons in 220 yy., or 
five years more than the time assigned by Josephus and reckoned by chronology, 
only 143,360 ; and even that would be an unwieldy, I may say impossible colony, 
to march together, though it were but for ten years, or for five, or for one year. 



( 1 ) Yet, notwithatanding his issertion a> above ( Ant. II. XT,) that there wore but 215 jy. from the 
time of the settlement of Jacob in Egypt to the day of the Israelites' departure from that country, Josephus 
telU us that the Divine Voice itself signified to Abram, that his posterity should suffer 400 yy. in Egypt 
before coming to Canaan to possrsR it : ^oivr? 6tia trap^v. anoarif^atvovaa Trovvpav^ avrov Toif c-tyoi-otf 
yttrova^ CTrt trrj rtTpTjKocna. ytVTjaoptfVov^ Kara tj)v \tyinTTQV k. t. \. ( ift. I. X. 3.) And this 
profane ascription of false prophecy to the Deity he fortifies by a positive assertion of his own, that they 
did complete -100 yy. in the oppression of servitude un<lcr and in the land of the Egyptians : Kat Ttrpaicoatutv 
fjLtv tTotv \povov fm Tavratz St,T]vvaau rate raXanrajptat^. (A. II. ix. 1, ed. Richter.) It was neces- 
sary to maintain the miastatemeut of the holy writings at the expense of homon coDsistency and of Divine 
iDtegrity. 

6* 



130 NOTES TO 



does not hesitate, in speaking of the assertion of Herodotus, that 
the Jews ( Syrians of Palestine ) took their rite of circumcision 

especially through uninhabited and often sterile places, (i) Now all of these 
603,500 fighting men that came out of Egypt died in the wilderness by the way, 
all saving two, Caleb and Joshua {Nuni. xxvi, 64, 65; Josh. v. 6.) Yet, in the 
13th month after the 40 years' wandering, that ferocious leader Joshua, — a man 
after Moses' own heart, versed in all his wiles, and practising with a like impious 
presumption the same monstrous yet childish mummeries, — sent over the Jordan 
against the small city of Jericho '* about 40,000" men *' prepared for war," 
( Josephus says 50,000,) taken only from Reuben, Gad, and half of the tribe of 
Manassah {Josh. iv. 12, 13;) the whole number of those *' who were able to go 
to war in Israel," as counted in the plains of Moab, amounting to 601.730, — there 
being besides 23,000 Lcvites "all male" {Num. xxvi. 51, 62); which is more 
than the soldiers of a similar description ( foot ) assembled for his conquests by 
Sesosti'is, the supposed successor, son or grandson, or great-great-grandson, of the 
Pharaoh, Amenophis, some have said the self-same monarch, who made so bad a 
passage of the Red Sea. (3) 
The whole of Canaan, or Palestine, estimated by the most liberal allowance, is 

( '1 ) The fact of their wandering ( if It was a fact and not a mere invention, — and observe, the 40 years 
ere made to correspond with the 40 days that Moses is said to have been up in the Mount without meat or 
drink, carving with his own hands, in all that time, what, with a profane policy, he durst ascribe to the 
Blow fingers and plodding brain of the awful Lord of the Universe, Him whose shadow could not rest upon 
the Mount which was »o audaciously feigned to contain His absolute pre.>*euce, (a) ) — the fact of their long 
wandering in stony Arabia, coasting the Red Sea and going south before they went upward to what was 
afterward Judea, would show in itself that they were but a small and, when occasion served, a predatory 
band, acquiring strength through numbers and by the spoil of petty towns, till finally they were enabled to 
make inroads into more cultivated regions and by the merciless extermination of the original inhabitants 
provide themselves a permanent dominion. 

( 3) Josephus, whose national vanity makes hira claim for hia people that they were the sAe^jfterd-Hnf* 
who conquered Egypt according to Manelho, assumes the name TetAmoais, which the latter assigns to the 
monarch who drove them out of Egypt, as belonging to the Pharaoh who at a much later period expelled the 
Jews under Moses, and whom Manetho calls Amenophis : thus citing the Egyptian where his accounts suit 
him, but accusing him of positive falsehood and perverting his language where they do not. See Apion. I. 
26, 27. 

There is much confusion aa to the names and reigns of the various sovereigns of Egypt, even if we suppose 
that any list we have of them is correct. Ca. Anc. Egyps. Vol. I. pp. 24-62, comparing especially pp. SI 
and 47. The accomplished author places the Exodus under Thothmes III. ( Tothmosis.) Lord Prudhoe (ib. 
pp. eo. sq.), under Pthamenoph ( Araenoph or Amenophis ), the last king of the 18th dynasty with Manetho. 

( o Wn like manner Menes, the earliest of the Egyptian kings, feigned to have received his books of laws 
from the god whom the Greeks after knew as Hermes. And so it has been in the primeval times of many 
nations ; nor is the blasphemous practice wholly intermitted dow : witness the Mormons. But the Jewish 
first ruler and legislator went a step beyond any of his predecessors or successors, as likewise he did an act 
of folly which I do not remember to have been perpetrated by other of these politic falsifiers ; for he broke 
in a passion the first tables without regard to their Divine workmanship, — and then went up in the hill 
again, and after 40 days more fasting got him made a new set ! But he knew the folk he had to deal with. 

If there is anything surprising in this world, it is the blindness with which men follow the beaten track, 
the readiness or indilfcrence with which they give over their reason, not in religion only, but in ail things, 
to prescriptive teachers, and the reimgnance they feel to being shaken from the stupor in which in certain 
matters they have allowed to sink their intellect, and consequently their anger at the efforts of those who 
venture to endeavor to arouse them. The religious frauds of Moses are as jialpably deceptions as the tricks 
of a conjurer; yet, while pity ia felt for the gaping clown who accepts these in unhesitating faith, they 
never ask themselves if they are not aa dull in admiring the former. But couple the miracle with Mo- 
hammed, or make the gods hold council ou Olympus, and they are wiae enough. 



THE NEW CALVARY 131 

from the Egyptians, to add, that in such matters every one should 
be allowed to exiircss his owti opinion {Ant. Jud. VIII. x. 3.), 

not 200 miles in length, and not more than 80 in breadth at its widest part, nor 
more tlian 10 or 15 at the narrowest ; and a large part is incapable of cultivation 
and even unfitted for habitation. Yet we have assigned to the people, not that 
occupied this territory in their palmiest or most populous day, but after 40 
years' wandering in uncultivated places to reach it, a power to put into the field, 
to the storming of a single town, whose feeble walls were undermined, or in some 
treacherous way made useless, the same number of men that Bonaparte carried 
with him in his attempt to achieve the conquest of Egypt, and this too out of not 
quite one fifth of their whole body. (<) 

Nearly five centuries later ( B. C. 1017), when Joab numbered the people for 
David, he made the count, of " valiant men that drew the sword," in all 1300,000, 
( 2 Sam. xxiv. ; Jos. Ant. XII. xiii. 3 ; ) which elsewhere is increased to 
1570,000, — Levi and Benjamin coujited 7iot among them (1 Chron. xxi. 5, 6; ) 
and this notwithstanding the exhaustion of civil war and repeated battles against 
neighboring nations. After such a reckoning, it is not exacting too much of us 
that we should believe that the three days' pestilence, which David accepted or 
elected as an ex):)iation for his arrogance, or irregularity, in taking the count, 
struck down 70,000 men (3 Sam. xxiv. 12-15), who, by the way, had nothing to 
do witli it. Cf. \ Chron. xxi. 12-17. and Josephus {Ant. VII. xiii.), who makes 
the plague to have done this prodigious work in half a day, — from the first light 
to the hour of the midday meal, (s) 

Such Ls the kind of statistics which the Jewish historian is weak enough to 
repeat^ sometimes diminishing the coimt ( as in the number of those that perished 
with Zimri,) sometimes increasing it (as above,) and whose puerile exaggera- 
tion, the extravagance of a barbarous, vain and boastful people, he continues 
from later sources and renews in other forms. 

(J ) Jo»ephus, 1 hare said, makes the nnmhpr 50,000 ( AnI. V. i ; ) and after telling us how the rapid Jordan 
flowed gently and with diminished volume until the Hebrews had passed over and then relumed to its 
former size, and how they presently reaped the rorn of the Canaanitcs and took other things without moles- 
tation, their former food, the manna, of which they had eaten 40 years, just then giving out, he makes the 
walla of Jerieho, obedient like the river, to fall down 0/ their own accord at the seven times' blowing of the 
seven saeerdotal trumpets, and the people tamely submit to have their throats em, — a righteous operation 
which was performed upon every soul of them, men, women, and children, — the treacherous harlot that 
had let in the spies, and her vile househoM, only excepted. It is in commenting on this act of turjiitude ( the 
harlot's ) that Whislon justifies direct falsehood on occasion, provided no oath has been demanded of the liar. 

(5) AtToXuivro it, apfa/4fX'r;c tu/Sev T»7C Xot/*i«»JC voaov ^Qeipeiv auTov^ iaii djpa'; apiffrov, fxvpiaSe^ 
i-nra. .4nt. J. VII. xiii. 3. This he derived from Scripture , for the Septuagint has it, .. «ai f<Sw,ff Kvpioc 
6<ivaTov ev Xopar^X atro irpcoidtv fat^ wpaz apiarov \ Rernor. lib. II. In the Chronicles, mention is merely 
made of the three days' choice of the sword of the Lord and death In the land ; nothing of the one day's exe- 
cution. The whole story is one of those superstitious exaggerations of a natural event which, in aome 
degree common to all old histories of a semi-barbarous age, are for an obvious reason nowhere BO plentiful 
and SO gross as in the priest-wrilten histories of the old Testament. 



132 NOTES TO 



■wliich, however it may be but an affectation of liberality, — for it 
is a favorite phrase of his which with little or no variety he often 
repeats, as if to deprecate the incredulity of his enlightened 
heathen readers, — ia admitting a doubt of the divine origin 
ascribed to the rite. See Herod. II. iv. — p. 157 t. i ( with Wes- 
seling^s note, p. 214t. iii) ed. Schweighreuser, Lond. 8°. 1834: 
also Diod. Sic. I. xxviii. p. 80 ed. s. cit. 

It is in fact the same necessity, which in the Roman forms of 
Christianity made mingle with its simple tenets the practices of 
paganism, that prescribed to Moses the observance of a custom 
which he would have found it impossible to eradicate, * even if he 

* In the dissemination of all religions, it has been found necessary to concede 
Bomething to the prejudices and habits of the converts. The first Gregory or- 
dered, that as the recently converted English had been accustomed in their pagan 
rites to sacriflce many oxen, they should be permitted on certain days of public 
religious celebration to erect booths about the churches which had once beea 
heathen temples and observe the solemnity with their wonted festivals, giving aa 
his reason this very necessity of concession ("nam duris mentibus simul omnia 
abscindere, impossibile esse non dubium est, etc." ), and citing as a precedent the 
commands of Jehovah to the Israelites, whereby the sacrifices ichich in Egypt 
they loere wont to make to the devil should be converted to His own worship. 
GSEG. Mellito Abbati Epist. ( S. Greq. Epist. lib. ix. 71. ) ap. Mansi t. x. p. 307. 
It ia also found in Spelman : Concilia, Decreta, &c. &c. i7i re Eccles. Orb. 
Britann. ( Lond. in fol. 1639 ) t. i. p. 89 ; and an extract, partially as above, in 
MURATORr. Anecd. Grcec. ( Patav. 4to. 1709 ) p. 256. 

So, in the 16th century, the Jesuits conceded to the Chinese the adoration of 
their ancestors and of Confucius. And in our own day, the missionaries in China 
have displayed the same accommodating spirit. In their translation of the Bible, 
Adam's sin is not mentioned, and the Ten Commandments begin with the IVth, 
while opium-smoking is with an vmderhand morality adroitly smuggled into the 
prohibition of adultery. I state this on the authority of the Allgeineine Zeitung 
(Aug. 11, 1853), which derived the information from an article (I think) in the 
London Times, (i) The conjectural reason which is assigned in the Zeitung for 

(1) The greater part of this note, as also oTsome others of the numher. is taken from the notes to an 
untinished Sltetch of the History of the Church, preliminary to a Life of Hua, which I was busy with In 
that year in Munich, and expected to be able soon after to publish. Hence the remote date. 



THE NEW CALVARY 133 



did not himself believe it useful, or if, rather, he did not himself, 
boi'ii to the 7)iaiinej% never dream of questioning its vitility.* 

Barnabas, in that odd Epistle which is ascribed to him, seems 
to say ( for it is not always easy to sec what he would say ) that it 

the precedence given to the IVth Commanclment is the love of the Chinese for 
their parents. If the 1st, lid, and Hid laws of the Table have only shifted their 
places in the missionaries' version, this may well be ; but if they are excluded 
altogether, I should assign a very different reason. The household gods of the 
Chinese are probably as obstinate as those of the Romans ( when, in the strife of 
Image-worship, the Popes, lending themselves to the idolatry of their quasi-sub- 
jects, hastened to seize the long-coveted occasion for founding an independent 
dominion,) and if the Garden of Eden was omitted, the six-days' labor would go 
with it, in compliment to the pre-Adamite antiquity of the Floioery Nation. 

* Philo, who seems to have been moved to the disous.sion of its propriety and 
utility by the ridicule attached to it by the enlightened heathen, ( v. de Circinncis. 
ad init., — where he .speaks of the rite as held in especial honor by the Egyptians,) 
assigns as a chief reason for not departing from the usage its prophylactic ser- 
vice : \aXeir-i\i; vo<tov koi ivaiarov iraOov^ aTraWayrjv, rjv avBpaxa [carbuncle] 
(coAovaif. (iTi. Op. ed. Mangey t. ii. p. 211. Lond. 1742.) This is as if the shav- 
ing of the scalp, which was also an Egyptian custom, should be advocated for a 
whole nation because with the uncleanly the hair is liable to vermin. 

See in Joshua Chap. V. vv. 4-7 ; where it is said, that after the coming out 
from Egjirt there were no more circumcised for all the forty years that they 
remained unsettled ; at the end of which time the rite was re-ordered. From 
which it follows, that the Jews who were both by birth and habitation Egyptian 
had undergone the mutilation, but the new race, wanderers that were getting 
themselves a new home in Canaan by exterminating, as I have before said, root 
and branch ( according to their own story, but not according to the collateral facts 
to be gathered from that story,) the proper owners, went, for nearly two genera- 
tions, without it. What then becomes of the command to Abraham ; and of the 
penalty denounced for its infraction ? ( Gen. xvii, 14.) The reply is obvious ; 
and the remark might follow, that, since they found no inconvenience from its 
suspension, it is a pity and a wonder that those, who diverged so much in other 
things from the people they had separated or been separated from, had not the 
decency and good sense to drop it altogether. But in Josh. v. 9 we have : " And 
the Lord said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt 
from off you". . . and a commentator ( Herries' B. ad loc.) tells us: "By the 
reproach of Egj'pt is meant uncircumcision with which the Israelites were wont 



134 NOTES TO 



was a bad angel that taught the Jews the circumcision, wMcJi was 

not meant to be of the flesh : aWa Trupeffrirray, on ayycXos TTOi/ripoi (CTO(pi- 

at avTov;. He then denies that it was meant for a sign to Abraham, 
because every Syrian, and Arabian* and all the priests of the 

to upbraid other people, and particularly the Egyptians." (i) This in face of 
the known facts, and indeed of the Bible itself : for in Jeremiah, ix, 25, we have 
Egypt, Judah, and Edom classed together as of the circumcision : — " ut ani- 
madvertam in onines qui circumciso sunt proeputio, in yEgyptos, in Judasos, in 
Idumaeos, in Ammonitas, in Moabitas." Ex Seb. Castell. interp. Our English 
version of the place is obscure and involved, and gives a sense contrary to what 
is conveyed in the Latin, and also in the Greek ; the close of which latter version 
however seems to contradict the first part ; and observe the distinction between 
Edom and Idumea : Sehold the days come, saith the Lord, and I icill bring the 
visitation ofiornth ^ipon all that are cut around in their foreskin ; upon Egypt, 
and upon Iditmcea [ Judiea ? ], and xipon Edom, and tcpon the sons of Amman, 
and upon the sons of Mnab, and upon every one icho is shaved ahmit his visage, the 
dwellers in the desert ; because all the 7iations are uncircumclsed in flesh, and the 
whole house of Israel are uncircumcised in their hearts. — Cf. Deut. xxiii. 7, 8. 

* See Exod. iv. 25, from which it would appear that Moses himself was not at 
first, if ever, in favor of circumcision, for he had neglected the act for his own 
son, and the mother, a woman of Midian and daughter of a Midianitish priest, — 
of the very people therefore with whom Moses, at a later day, interdicted sexual 
union ( Num. xxv ), although afterward, when he had ordered them to be exter- 
minated, he reserved all the virgins ( 32,000 ! ) expressly for that nnion ( ib. 
xxxi ), — and the mother, a woman of Midian and daughter of a priest of Midian 
( observe that ), did it angrily for him. Indeed nowhere does Moses prescribe the 
rite, and during the whole time of his ministration or government, as I have just 
shown from Joshua, it was entirely neglected. So that we should have a fair 
right to suppose, that it was only when the Israelites came into contact with the 
people of Arabia who practised it, that it was again thought of ; or, what is not 
improbable, that, having by neglect of proper cleanliness, easy to occur, if not 
unavoidable, in their wandering and in such a country, got, very many of them, 
into a condition that suggested the preventive means that were in use in Egypt, 
they had clamored for the revival of the old rite which Moses had purposely dis- 
carded, and Joshua was obliged to accede. Mohammed, who accorduig to the 

( 1 ) Whether wilfully or ignorantly, thia is a palpable perversion of the meaning of the text. Wilkinaon 
givcB the proper sense (A. E. -r. 318 ) ; viz. that it was the Egyptians who considered it a reproach to be a« 
the foreigners { Gentiles ) whom they, lilie their Jewish kinsmen, derided and hated. 



THE NEAV CALVATIY 135 



idoU — and the Egyptians also^ are of the ciroimcmon. Ep. 
Catholica: g ix. {Pair. Apost. Ep. ed. Reithmayr. pp. 146,8.) 
I pay no regard to this epistle, which the Catholics themselves 
consider rather unworthy of the earliest writer after the Apostles, 
but cite it to show tliat it is not particularly heathen to maintain 
so very ob%'ious a fact. 

Indeed, the discussion of this subject may be narrowed to a 
single question. Were the Jews origuially a portion of the Egyp- 
tian people, migrating, or, as has been said with some plausibility, 
driven from Egyi^t because of leprosy ; or were they, as them- 
selves maintain, a distinct race which had settled among that 
people ? If the f omier, * argument is unnecessary : but, assum- 

Mussulman hagiologists came into the world already peritomizod, or w-ithout the 
dermal prolongation that would admit of the rite, gave himself, like his quasi- 
prototype Moses, no pains about it, but let the old-time custom take its course, to 
fall into disuse, or be, as it was, continued, — precisely as, like Moses, he made 
certain forms and superstitions of the old idolatry, which he never could have 
changed or rooted out, become a part of the new worship, and, by presciibing 
them himself, incorporated as ritual what otherwise would have been outside and 
antagonistic to his religion. 

* Diodorus ( where before cited ) implies that they were colonists of Egypt. 
Josephus calls the Egyptians, directly, the "kinsmen" of the Jews. ( (7. Ap. I. 
11. — p. 543 Whiston II.) Was this because when in Egypt the latter had inter- 
married with the Gentile after the e.xample of Joseph ? It they were a separate 
people, that could hardly be, because by their own showing, being shepherds, 
they were a vile and detested race at the very first, having but one class under 
them more contemptible, the swineherds. ( ' ) The relationship may be directly 
traced, not only in the physical characteristics of the modern Copts, as given by 
Denon, but in all the monuments. See everywhere the prints in Wilkinson, where 

(1) ^Vhat the herd of COno swinp were (1r>ing in Oadarn, when the Jews, having abandoned idolatry, did 
not even once a year roast a pig lilte their Fgyptian Itinamen, it would be hard to say. Perhaps they were 
employed, as -we are tol.l tliey were by the latter people, in purposes of agriculture ; to tread in the seeds, it 
is said ( Hb-'Ron. Buter.), — thougli I should rather suppose, in preparing the ground and saving the use of 
the plough ; for torn a few hogs into a field, and in a short time, by their instinctive habit of rooting, they 
will put it into a state that could not he told at a little distance from that made by light ploughing. But 
when the devils asked to be sent into the swine, it must be admitted that they knew their ancient home ; 
for the Egyptians believed that the souls of the wicked, on returning to this world, entered the bodies of 
pigs, — « natural metempsychosis, at least for the groveling and sensual, like the transformations of Circe. 



136 KOTES TO 



ing their own statements to be reliable, then they were in a state 
of vassalage or even servile subjection to the Egj'ptians, and were 
comparatively few in number. Now would the servants have 
given this rite to the masters, or the masters to the servants ? 
who probably would have been compelled to adopt it, even if they 
did not, under the circumstances, willingly, and by imitation of 
their betters.* And observe, according to their historian, they 
were for over two centuries domesticated with the Egyptians, a 
time certainly sufficient to destroy all peculiarities of their own 
race ( being not then prohibited from mixing with the surrounding 
people, so far as it was feasible in their condition, ) and to make 
them in religion as in ordinary customs perfectly identical. So 
we see that their first act after the exodus was to set up an image 
of Mnevis ( the ox worshiped at Heliopolis : Plut. Is. et Os. p. 
437 t. vii. ed. Reiske; Euseb. Pro'p. iii. xiii. iiiit.,) and that 
most of the ceremonies of the Egyptian priests, as well as much 

the profiled features of men and women are with rare exceptions such as are 
characteristic of the modern Jews when comeliest, and particularly while yet in 
childhood. The nose with the extremity curving under and the heavy lips are 
not to be mistaken. There is however in the same work, at p. 296 of vol. ii, a 
plate representing the arrival of strangers in the country, which those who wish 
to believe the Mosaic history conjecture to represent the caravan of Jacob, not- 
withstanding the absence of vehicles ( see Gen. xlv. in, 21 ), that there is no old 
man, and that they are named in the inscription as captives and numbered as but 
thirty-seven. The profile faces are certainly more Jewish than those of the na- 
tives, but they are merely contemptuous exaggerations of the same type ; nor is 
it to be supix)sed that the artist took portraits for such a subject. If he did, when 
there is no evidence that it was done even in the case of the kings, the faces 
would still present a strong proof of the consanguinity of the two races. 

* The explorations of modern travelers have shown that the existence of the 
rite in Egypt, at a time long anterior to the arrival there of Joseph, is plainly 
demonstrated on the monuments. Cs. Ajic. Egijp.i. V. 318. This might settle the 
question without argument. But probably the answer would be, with those who 
are determined to believe the Jews, that Abraham taught it to the Egyptians, as 
he did astronomy and the differential calculus. 



THE NEW CALVARY 137 



of their costume, and the pomp of their religious service, were 
made compulsory by their leader, who forgot not even to sep- 
arate the animals into clean and unclean according to the mode 
of Egypt, where the hog, as Justin says, or whoever writes in 
that name ( Qumt. etc. ad Orthod. 102. Op. T. III. P. ii. p. 
50. ed. Otto. Jenaj 8". 184G), was then the only animal that was 
denied divine honors, and, Herodotus relates ( II. 47 ), was so 
abhorred by the Egj-ptiaus, that, if it happened to touch their 
garments merely, they went to the river to wash. 

16. — P. 33. — and icho makes not moi'e^ 7/", etc.] I neglected 
to make a memorandum of the passage of Scripture here alluded 
to. But, in himting for it, I find in Smmiel—l. ch. vi. 19, — 
that 50,070 men were killed because some of them had looked 
( all could not ) into the Ark : a story of like import, although not 
directly elucidative. To cull plenty of such childish tales, which 
if not credited are absurd and if credited are pernicious, one has 
not to search a great way in that painful record of profane assum})- 
tion, inhumanity, and falsehood, which makes up so large a part 
of the semi-fabulous historical books of the Old Testament, and 
which, with its many indirect lesisons of perfidy, deceit and cun- 
ning, mars or even neutralizes so much elsewhere in its pages that 
is precious in ^dsdom, useful in morality, and beautiful and con- 
solatory in religion.* 

* The most useful perhaps, as well as most elevating, of all books, woukl be the 
Bible, were It carefully and largely expurgated ; but, as it is, it is one of the most 
hurtful to the general or vulgar mind, — which finds therein the sanction of 
example, if not of actual precept, for all its most vicious or most degrading pro- 
pensities. If we must have an unexpurgated Bible, it should at least be free 
from all such comments as seek to justify every crime of the patriarchs, great 
leaders and other holy persons, by Divine commandment. We have seen how far 
this sort of casuistry ( to me blasphemous) has carried the English translator of 
Josephus. Yet that book is in many famUies a sort of companion for the danger- 



138 NOTES TO 

17. — P. 37. They did idth the tmter-hubhle ^ icJien etc.] Pi- 
late alludes to the tumult caused by his taking the sacred treasure 
to defray the cost of introducing water into Jerusalem. See note 
l.in Calvary : Yol. i. p. 77. 

18. — P. 44. — Mizraim — ] Egypt: supposed to be so called 
from Mizraim, Misraim, or Mesraim, who is the second named 
among the sons of Cham or Ham. See Qcfti. x. 6, and compare, 
in the English version, Gen. 1. 11. 

"IVIizraim, the second son of Ham, is the same who is called 
Misor by Sanchoniatho and Menes by Herodotus ; and Egypt was 
the nation peopled by his descendants. Indeed, the name Mizraim 
applies in all respects to Egypt ; for it signifies straitness or con- 
finement. Now Egypt is one of the most confined countries in 
the world. Etc.'''' Herries' Bible : Expos. Notes to IL Gen. — If 
this explanation is correct ( it appears to be given from Skald's 
Travels), what becomes of the derivation from the name of the 
son of Cham ? It would follow rather, that the name was 
invented for that putative founder from the word which described 
the peculiar shape of the country. However, from either word, 
but more directly from Misor, we may deduce the Misr which has 
long been the well-known Arabic name for Cairo, and for Egypt 
itself. But with the old Egyptians Chemi, or Khcmi, from Chem, 
Cham, or Khem, was the designation of the whole coimtry. 

With either name, and with either derivation, we have another 

oils and often inrlecent records of the Old Testament. Are our children never to 
be taught truth ? Is religion to be made to sanctify impiety ? and are fraud and 
meanness, treachery and ferocious inhumanity, to be set before their inexpe- 
rienced minds, not only without counter admonition, but with positive justifica- 
tion ? We have laid aside the Wisdom of ike Son of Sirach because it is not 
canonical, and none of our Bibles have it save those larger ones which contain the 
Apocryi^ha, — yet what noble lessons are there given ( a few that savor of Eastern 
cunning excepted ), and how beautiful yet solemn is the opening ! 



THE NEW CALVARY 139 



ai^Timent for the Egyptian origin of tlie f abulons tradition of Noah 
and his family, — if it was a tradition, and not the invention of 
some speculative intellect which sought to fill up the historical 
blank of a barbai-ous and long-forgotten age. But tradition or 
invention, the Egj-ptians did not get it from Abraham. * 

19. — P. 45. — Mestre — ] Josephus says that all of his coun- 
trymen call Egypt Mcistre and its people Mentreans. Ant. I. vi. 3. 
The reason is involved in the preceding note. 

20.— P. GO. Thus, see ye to it, After my death that none, 
etc.] f The great schism in the Chxirch which Paul and his 
brother apostles endeavored to prevent took place at last through 
the perversity of the Jews. Their party split into several sects, 
of which two were prominent. The one of these which retained 
the name of Nazareans acknowledged the divinity of Christ, and 
its members were distinguished from the more Uberal Christiana 
merely by their fanatical adherence to the prejudices of their 
forefathers. The other is that of the Ebionites, a name which 
according to some writers is derived from their foimder, Ehion : 
but according to others jt comes from the Hebrew word signifying 
poor, afflicted. Eusebius and Origen were of this opinion, though 
they differ as to the application of the epithet ; and the sect 

* Wilkinson says that the Hebrew word JIam is properly \vritten Khni, Kham, 
or Khem, and is thus the same as the Egyptian Khem : that the name ^fl~.ra^m, 
with its plural termination, seems to refer to the two divisions, Upper and Lower, 
of Egypt. "It is, however, remarkable that the word itself does not occur in 
liieroglyphics, though traced in the modem name Musr or Misr, by which both 
Cairo and Egypt are known at this day." Further: "Ham or Khem may have 
been the original name of that tribe which settled in the two districts called 
Mizraim ; and the Egyptians may have retained the appellation which they had 
as conquerors, in preference to tliat of the country they occupied." Anc. Em/ps, 
iv. 261, 2. See too, ib. i. pp. 2, 3. 

t from the Ms. mentioned at foot of p. 132. 



140 NOTES TO 



themselves may be aUowed a voice in the matter, who by the 
testimony of Epiphanius derived the term from their profession 
of poverty, maintaining they were the successors of those who 
in the time of the Apostles sold their goods to take up the Cross 
of the Lord.* 

The Ebionites stand before us in the pages of ecclesiastical his- 
tory as the iirst distinct body of Christians professing Unitarian- 
ism. Catholic writers love to point to the language imputed to 
Clement the Roman as evidence that the dogma of the Trinity 
began to obtain in the fold of St. Peter so early as the end of the 
1st century. Yet he merely mentions the two chief persons of 
the Godhead in rhetorical connection with the spirit of heavenly 
grace or love.f On the other hand, it is maintained .that the 

* In tlie Liber de SiUi et Nominib. Locor. Hebr., Jerom asserts that they de- 
rived their name from their leader : " Et a principe hsereseos E/Siwj'iTat nmicu- 
pantiu-." (Tertiillian was of the same opinion.) It is against their dogmas, he 
adds, that Paul writes to the Galatians. Op. t. ii. p. 427, ed. Martianay ; Paris. 
1C9!). in fol. Neander ( AUg. Gesch. der Chriatl. Relio. u. Klrche : V Abth. 2" 
Bd'., ss. 596-8. 2= Aufl. Hamb. ) considers the name, and probably with justice, 
as used in its literal sense, and originally applied in disparagement, because of the 
poverty of the class of men of whom the early Cln-istians were mostly composed ; 
and, of coiu-se therefore, at first, applied to all. 

t Clement, who was Bishop of Rome in the last ten years of the 1st century, 
was the disciple of Peter and Paul, and is the earliest of the Fatliers after Barna- 
bas. Only two of the Epistles of Clement remain. They are addressed to the 
Church of Corinth. One of them which is merely a fragment is allowed to be 
questionable, while the other which is considered genuine is the one in which 
occurs the supposed mention of the three persons of the Trinity. " Why, breth- 
ren," he asks, " should you suffer schism and strife to be amongst you ? Have we 
not one God, and one Christ, and one spirit of divine grace which is effused upon 
us? . . . . ovxt ^va. Oeov ^xafx-ev, ko-i kva. Xpterrov, koi ei' 7rv€u/ia rrjs xa.pi.to<; to 
€Kxv6iv £(f)' rj/iias ; . . S. Clem. ad Cor. p. 78 ed. Reithmayr ( Monachi 18°. 
1844. ) And it is in this simple passage, bald as to all dogmatical inference and 
pretension, that the Catholics affect to see the doctrine of the Trinity ! A Uni- 
tarian would find rather conclusion for his own creed ; and liis position would, 
from such a passage, be the stronger of the two. 



THE NEW CALVARY 141 



Ebionitish was the prevalent faith of the Church of Rome 
for the whole of the two first centuries.* The language as- 

* The Ebionites maintained tliat under all the Roman bishops down to the 13th 
( Victor ), their dogma of the simple humanity of Christ, Inspired not otherwise 
than as the Prophets of the Old Testament, prevailed, and of all the church- 
fathei-s that are adduced by name ( ap. Euscb. v. 28 ) against this assertion, not 
one is foimd that is claimed with any certiiinty by the Romish community. 
Hence, and on other grounds, Gfrorer considers that Artemon, the head of the 
Ebionites, maintained but the simple truth ; in other words, t/iai in the course 
of the %1 century, the Jewis/t- Christian view of the nature of Je-ius predominated 
in the Romish church. Allg. Kircheng. ut s. 1^. B. s. 255, f. — adding thereto the 
two preceduig pages, especially in reference to the " Shepherd" (Pastoris Liber ) 
of Hermas. — Cf Ncander, ti. «., p. 906 ; who acknowledges, with regret, the 
want of historical data to decide on the question of time ( i. e. that it was only 
with Zephyrinus, Victor's successor, that mystification of the Apostolic doctrine 
began, — as alleged by the Artemoiiites : ) pp. 999-1002. (i) 

(1) The curious reader may consult the fcllowing ancient church-writers : 

CLEMENS ROMANt;s ( c. A. C. G8 } : Ad Corinthioa Epiat, II, Cc. vti, xvi, xxi, xxii, xxiv, xxxvi, xlil, xlix* 
Iviii. 

Hermas ( a. C. 70 ) : Pastoris tic. Visiones ; Mandatum Im. : et Similit. 9«. ( " Filius qniilem Dei omnl 
creatura antiquior eel, ita ut consillo patri suo fuerit, condere creaturam, etc.*' fdl. 14 recto, ed. Fal)ri, 
Paris. 1513 i p. 100 in Galland. BihI. Vet. PP. t. [.) A charming hooli, which is but lillle known except to 
thcologiral scholars. II is imputed lo Hermas a disciple of Paul ( Epist. Rom. xvi. 14 ), and is assigned, as 
marked above, to the Y. "0. Among the more ancient Fathers it w.as held as canonical, and in ancient 
copies of the S. S. it is added to the books of the New Testament. By more recent church-writers, Alha- 
nasius, e. p., Jerom, and Rufinus, it is ranked among such writings as the Wisdom of Solomon, and of the 
Son of Siraeh, vtith Judith. Tobit, Esther, and the Maccabees, or with the still more apocrypha! book of 
Enoch. Cf. Oalland. Proleg. de S. Herma, c. ii ( Bibl. &c. t. i. p. xxvii ); or the Epjst. of Jac. Faber, pre- 
fixed to his ed. ; or, if the reader would have the collected testimony of the ancients, on both sides, Galland. 
/. e. 61 sqq. It is not merely a lery useful book ( Athan. de Incarv. t. i. p. 49. Op. Paris, in fol. 1698 ) for its 
moral precepts, bat well deserving to be read for its simplicity of style, not devoid of native grace, and its 
fancy. I could suppose it might have furnished the remotely suggestive idea, through which occurred to 
Dante his first thoughl of the Divine Comedy. See, in addition to the v;hole texture of the book, the pas- 
sage where the Shepherd lolls Hermas, that the Apostles and Teachers of the Son of God descended living 
" into the water '* to those just men who had died before the coming of the Lord, or, as Clem. Alex, has it 
( Stromal. I. ix, ). e*en before the Lair, as Abet, Noah, et at., and were their teachers : " Descenderunt 
Igilur, etc." Simil. li. 

I<;nat. ad Mamesianos §13, ( Patr. Apost. Episl. ed. Ileithm. supra cit. p. 222); and the circular letter 
of the Church of Smyrna relating lo the martyrdom of Polyearp, end of §19, ( ib. p. 364.) 

With regard lo the imputed Ebionitism of Hegesippus ( supposed to have been born about the commence- 
mei.t of the 2d Cy. ), Galland. Dibl. V. PP. — Prolegomena, c. il: p. vii. t. II. Vencliis 17(16. 

In the same volume of the same collection, the unseemly comparison — " prasclara comparatio, •• as the 
editor chooses to consider it— of the Athenian Athcnagoras (said to have been Ihe teacher of Clemens 
Alex. ) in his Leeatio, or Apologia pro Christianis, where hv- assimilates the two Emperors, M. Aurelius and 
L. Verus { A . C. 1G6 ICtt ) or the Emperor M. Aurelius and his son Commodus ( A. C. 177 ) to the Father and 
Eon of the Godhead. 

In the 2d volume of the same, the F.pistlea and Homilies which claim to have been written by Clement 
the Roman an<l go under the general name of " Clementina. " Their antiquity is evident, for they are on 
two occasions cited by Origen. They are supposed to have been written about the Y. 170, or even so late 
as Y. 220. The monotheism or Ebiontem of the writer is obvious throughout, and is very generally admitted. 
However, for a contrary opinion, cs. Ihe Prolegomena, chiefly after Maranus, — ib. p. Ivii. sqq. — I can 



142 NOTES TO 



cribed to Jesus is susceptible of a double iaterpretation ;* but 
nothing can be more positive than tbe language of the Evange- 

* But who can affirm that he used that language ? See the notes below. Yet 
let us suppose it to have been rcportecl faithfully after the lapse of near two- 
hundred years, what then does it amount to ? The apparent claim of divinity in 
one place is contradicted by its positive repudiation in another. Setting aside the 
fact that he prayed to the Father, which could not be if he and the Father were 
reaUy the same, the assertion " I and the Father are one" is regarded by several 

rrcaminend the "Homilies." They will not tire. In the 2(1, ( 13th and 14th chaps., ) there is the arga- 
ment of the immortality of the soul founded on the justice of Ooti, and the conviction of that justice from oar 
own sense of right, which every good man will recognize as identical with his own unassisted logic. 

Justin Maktyb ( ab. mirldle of 2d Cy. ): Quaest. et Reap. 139. ( Op. III. p. 224 ed. Otto s. cil. )j Expat, 
Rectae Fidei §3 (pp. 4, 6); Qnaest. ic. 129 (p. 204. ) These are supposititious worlis, and their Catholi- 
cism in the dogma of the Trinity is obvious. In his genuine works, there is a gradation of dignity made 
between the three persons, and in the religious honor rendered Ihera. (a) Apol. I. § 13. f pp. 162, 4. t. I. ) : 
also §60. In § 6, occcurs the following passage, which has given rise to much discussion : "Him[th« 
Father ], and the Son who came from Him and taught us these things, and the array of other attached ( or, 
accompanying) and assimilated good angels {kch. tov aWoiv i-rro^fvcuv Kat e^o^^o^ov^eyuiv ayadwv ay.- 
yeXwv (TTparoz'), [f)) aod the prophetic Spirit, we reverence and adore, e(c." i pp. 14H, 150, t. I.) 

Tatian the Assyrian, di.sciple of Justin: Contro Graecos ( c. an. 161) Oral. V. p. 640,041, Galland. 
BiM. I. 

The 3d and 5th Fragments of MKLITO, Bp. of the church in Sardis ( c. 169 ), — op. Galland. i». 678. 

HIPI'OLYTUS (who professed to be the disciple of Irena>us and who belongs to the first quarter of the Sd 
Cy. ) against the heresy of Noetus, the so-called Patripaasiant c. 1. ( ib. 454 ), where we have the creed of the 
then Catholic Church in the answer of the presbyters to Moelns when they expelled him from the Church. 
It makes no mention of the Holy Spirit. Also p. 455; and c. iv. pp. 466, 7 ; the beginning of c. vii. p. 458, 
and ch. viii, p. 459. Add the testimony of Anastasius ( in Colleetan. — ib. p. 409). Cf. Tertui.lian ( who 
flourished toward the end of the 2d Cy., dying c. 2-0, or six yy. before the date of the above tract ) cc. 9 and 
23 adv. Praiean. ; de Virg. Velatis, c. I ; de Ressurect. Carnia, p. 173 t. iii Op. ed. Seinler; and Novatian 
(presbyter iu the flrst half of the Sd Cy. ) de Trinitate c. xii, (p. 728 TerluU. Op. ed. Rigaltii, Venetiis in 
fol. 1744. ) With regard to Noetus, and the belief truly or falsely ascribed to him, Mosbeim De Rebus etc. 
ante Const. Sxc. III. 532; p. 687 ( with note, p. 682. ) Also, ib. 069 sq. Add Beausobre ; Hist, du Ma- 
nick. T. 1. p. 534, and thereon Mosheira again, I. e. 6S6 sq. 

CYPRIAN (beheaded jln. 258) : Epist. liiii. Op. col. 258 ed. Baluzii, Venet. fol. 1758: Lib. de Molorum 
Vanitate; ib. 686, 7, 8 ( with the notes : ) De Haereticia baptizandis f Epist. Ixxiii ( col. 318 : ] and again. Lib, 
de Unitate Eccl. i col. 467. ) 

Orioen ( who flourished in the flrst half of the Sd Cy. ) is unmistakably wavering, sometimes appearing 
to incline to the faith which was afterwards established by the Nictcan Council, sometimes to the opinions 
of Sahellius, sometimes to precede in sentiment the Arians(c). ( Mosheim, /. c. p. 623 ). And it was out 
of the doubts of Origen, that rose into being the rationalism of Arius, a demigoddess whose birth at an earlier 
day had not been startling, whose death at a later day had been altogether impossible. 

Finally, after the lapse of half a century from the date of the Nicaian creed, Jerom : xivth Epist. (writ- 
ten ab. y. 375), to Damasus, the Roman bishop ( Op. IV. pp. 20, 21, ed. Martianay, Paris 1706 )— " Clama- 
mus si quid, etc." Also the next Ep. ( xv., to the Presbyter, or Bp. of Chalcis, Mark), where he explains 
his faith as that of the Alexandrian or Roman Church (p. 21. " Ha^reticus vocor, etc." ) The very fluctua- 
tion in the mind of Jerom shows that the elements had not yet subsided and separated Into the distinct 
forms of solid earth and unstable water. All is as yet Chaos. What to think he knows not, and appears 
almost as ready to become the one thing as the other. 

(n) Which the Emperor Justinian objected to Origen as one of the worst of his WajpJeniiM. Ootov 
ravrr]^ fj.€i^ova ^\aa'^r)f2.Lav Ktira 6eov npoeveyKeiv nptyevr/i; riSwarw ; 6 icai (trt. tj;c dytac TpiaCoQ 
0<id/A,ov^ fTrLVorjaaz, 7ro\vOfi.av Kai. evrevdtv etaayeiv >SouXoM€vof . . . Justin. Imp. adv. Origenem ; ap. 
Mansi. SS. Concilia, etc. t. ix. p. 489. 

(b) Cf. the passage in the Clementina ( 1 
Angels : \<T^€V yap Kat avroi, a-no rcov T, 

(c) V. Jusltn. Imp. ado. Orig. ubi s. p. 4i 



THE NEW CALVAUY 143 



b'Bts.* It must be remembered however, that to the middle 
of the 2d century we know not what Avas the New Testament, 

chiirch-wTiters so far down as tlic 3d Cy. (') to have reference, not to corporal 
identity ( so to say ), but to similarity in certain qualities or attributes and per- 
haps in certain functions ; though this to me is sheer blasphemy as well as ab- 
surdity, — for, supposing that the author of our religion did use such a phrase, 
which I think is altogether inconsistent with his character, it could mean nothing 
more than this : Do as I bid you ; for by my lips speaketh the Eternal Father ; 
in the lessons that I teach you. He and I may be considered one. — Is the Scrip- 
tural expression as to man and wife, " and they shall be one flesh," to be taken 
literally ? It is strange to me that intelligent men can so pervert the plain mean- 
ing of language. In the words of Clement of Alexandria, though not applied to 
this occasion or to such a theme, pia^ovrai Trpos ras ejri8i>/i'as tijc Tpa^njc 
( Strom, lib. vii, c. xvi ), — they icrcst the Sot-iptxires to theii' oicn desires : it is 
not their sense that interprets, but their wishes and their aims. But after the 
literalness which could pervert the memorable words of the Last Supper into the 
monstrous doctrine of transubstantiation, nothing ought to be wondered at in 
dogmatical misinterpretation. See Note .35. 

* In no place however of the N. T. is the Trinity expressly indicated. Tho 

(1) The creed of the Catholic Church in the 3d Cy., as it is fcnnd In Irenseus ((. i, c. S tq. I. iii, c. 4) 
Tertullinn {adv. Pra*. 2, De Prtrarript. 13, & De Virg. Vet. i.) is also given in Hippolytus. at the place in- 
dicated in subnote 1, p. 142, supra. Hippplytus dates, as therein intimated, c. An. 2'J6. (a) . . r^^ctc 
tva Stov otS.i^tv aXjiSwi- oiSa/^ty Xpi<TToi'- oi«a/ier Toi' vioy waSovra, ft. r. X. We kvote Irltit ons 
Ood ; we Jtnoa Christ ; we \now the .Son who suffered,— dead as he died, and risen up on the third day, and be- 
ing on the right hand of the Father, and to come to judge the tivmg and the dead. Not a word of tlie Holy 
Spirit ; not a word of the inseparability. It is simply the two perMons, as in modern Unitarianism. p. 454 
t. i. Bibl. eil. . .T>( yp o"' '?"■ ^'"i ^'ov tifai ; For who will not say there is one Ooil ! (ib. 455.) See too 
o. iv. p. 45t!— TO St tiTTiiv, iri. tv aoi, k. t. \.; and p. 467, c. vi, where he explains the phrase of John, 
& dcoc d TTavroKpaToip, Ood the Omnipotent, by Christ's own testimony, all things are delivered to me hy the 
Father; and again, toward the end of the same chapter, — iva tv rraatv, n. t. X. p. 451?,— the manner ia 
which he winds up his argument against Norms' (h) identification of the Son with the Father, by Christ's 
own language, 1 go to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your Ood (vrrayo) Trpoc, it. r. X.) is 
quite conclusive. It was the heresy which confounded Christ with the Father ; but the doctrine of tha 
Catholic Church and of Hippolytus was that they were distinct persons, and the power of Christ a dele- 
gated power. 

Observe the following from the very next chapter (i&. 458). ^av it \tyti it. r. X. But if he sayt 

( « ) He flourished under the Emperor Alexander, whose reign began in the Y. 222. He has the com- 
mendation of Jeroin, who terms him a most eloquent man, and that of Anastasius, which is more to tho 
point, for, in addition to his merit as a Christian teacher, he calls him a faithful witness of the truth in 
agreement with all other holy founders of the r^atholic and Apostolic Church of God, teaching the double 
yet inseparable nature, A*c. it.c. in CoUeclan. p. 4':9 t. ii. Gall. BiU. 

ib] The eminent work Contra haeresin Noeti was the termination of the two and thirty heresies against 
which, according to I'hotius. Hippolytus wrote. In the Vatican Codex, it is ins.-ribed, Homity oj Uippoly- 
tits aeaintt the Heresy of one Noetus ; 'O^iXta 'iTTTroXfroi^ e.c rr,v alpctriv y:ovrov rtvof. 

NoetUH was, as before imi lied, a Potripassian lilte Praxeas, l,eing the head of the sect of those Antitrinl- 
tarians c. VSO, as ITaxeas had been in the laltir half of the orcccding century. E^?) rov Xpiorof avro» 
tiyOLi Toi' tluTtpa, itai ovTov Ton Hartpa ytytviia6ai «ai rrtnoveivnt «ai a7roT«#I'»)/t£l.ai. {Hipp. e. 
Hii'res. Soeli c. i,: p. 451— t. ii. Gall. Uibl.) Hr said that Christ was himself the Father, and that it was th« 
Father himself who had been bom, and who hat suffered and died. A lilasphenious absurdity certainly ; but 
It seems to me no prodigious fruit of the mystified, Flalonized, and theosophized dogmas of tb* 
Church. 



144 NOTES TO 



and the collection which then appeared, and which contained 
of the Evangelists Luke alone, is pronounced to have been in 

verse in the 1st Epistle of Jolan (v. 7), where alone this occurs, has been long 
recognized to be an interpolation. See in Herries' Bible ( ad loc. ) the testimony 
of Sir Isaac Newton : Q) and in our own times, a church-historian whose 
authority will not be questioned, any more than his intentions, has said of it in 
the most positive language, not only that it is deckled^/ spurious^ but that it 
demonstrates by its sp^irious form how foreign such a collocation is to the wri- 
tings of the Neio Testament — "ist entschieden unacht und zeugt in ihrer un- 
achten Gestalt davon, wie fremd eine solche Zusammenstellung den neutesta- 
mentlichen Schriften ist." Neand. ti, s. cU. S. 985. 



(Noetos fe.)» Jesus himself said * I and the Father are one ' . . . that s<Tfj.€v, are, is not said of one ; but indi" 
eatea two personages, though with one power. 

But this docs not suffice. He explains the language of Christ to Philip, " Philip, have I been so long 
with you, and thou knowcsl me not 7 Who sees me, sees the Father ? " thus : that is, 1/ thou hast seen me, 
through me thou mayest know the Father ; for from the similarity there is in the image the Father may be easily 
recognized. But if thou hast not known the image, which is the Son, how is it that thou wouldst see th« 
Father 7 (a) The Church, of course, considers this, as Athanasius pretended to, aa making for the present 
doctrine of the Trinity, but I cannot see, with what precedes and what follows, that modern Uuitarianism 
could wish for anything more specific. 

In the next chapter {viii, p. 459), the Spirit is mentioned. AvayKr)v ovv, k. r. X. " He must therefore 
needs [Noetus], even against his will, confess God the Father Omnipotent, and Christ Jeaus, Son of 
God, God made man, to whom the Father subjected all things except Himself and the Holy Spirit { u. 
TravTa Uarnp {irrera^e irapeKToq 4avTov xaL 7rv€-u/j.aTo<: dyiov); and that these are thus THREE f»tat 
TOVTOV(; ewai oOtcoi; Tpca"). He proceeds: " But would he know how onfi God is demonstrated, let him 
know that there is one power of Him (drt ^la Jvva^tc rovrov—i. e. let him understand it as of tha 
single power of this God—) ; and in so far as concerns the power, God ia one ; but so far aa belongs to the 
economy (*. e. its administration), the manifestation is trifold." The note 16. says that Tnrnauus renders 
the passage : *' But a'^ far aa respects the incarnation, &,c." An exegetical interpretation of oiKovofj.ta 
which the lexicons give us on the authority of Jerom and Damascenus, but which has no warrant even in 
application. 

There need be no more cited of this treatise; the language cannot be mistaken, except— not by those 
who, as the roughness of Tertullian has it, are foots or blind, but by those who are bent upon mistoHng 
it. The doctrine of Hippolytus, which, remember, was pronounced by Anaatasius to be that of the Church, 
maintains what ia consonant with the essential part of the later and more intelligible doctrine of Arius, 
^ viz. that the Son is distinct from the Fathpr, proceeded from the Father, and relumed to the Father, 
being one with him in power only, — and that delegated, aa he himself said, — not in person, and that the 
three. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three, not one, nor three in one. 

The ground was sowed for the Trinity, but the plant had not sprung up. Origen himself waa yet ia 
doubt how to classify it. 

(1) As that excellent edition of the Bible is presumably rare, I have 
venieuce, the entire comment. "Sir Isaac Kewton, in a letter to Mj 
on this place, quotes many passages from the ancient controversial 
originally thus, * It is the Spirit that, beareth witness, because the Spii 
bear record, the spirit, the water, and the blood, and these three agree in one.* He also affirms, that this 
reading stands in the oldest and most authentic manuscripts, and endeavours to account for the inter* 
polation." 

, and denying the 



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conti 


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! three thai 



THE NEW CALVARY. 145 



this Evangelist not faithful.* What changes may have been 
introtluced in the text, by the zeal which so often palliates to 
itself and indeed justifies the forgetfulness of integrity, I can- 
not say ; f but if such inteiiiolations are suspected on the mere 
knowledge of others which CatlioLics themselves admit, no one 
can deny the Unitarians the use of such an argument. The 
mixture of Platonism with the simple dogmas of Christianity 
cannot be doubted, and the Logos of St. John furnishes alone a 
handle for skejiticism, or suggests a doiibt of which the impugner 
of the Trinity would not be slow to avail himself. :|: 

* ilarcion's Evangel, according to some eminent Biblical critics ( Eichhora, 
e. g. ), was tlie original gospel from which at a later day ( toward the end of the 
2d or tlie beginning of the 3d Cy. ), tlie first complete Gospel of St. Luke was 
formed. This opinion is attacked by llahn ( Theol. Prof, at Kdnigsberg ), who 
endeavors to show that Marcion had the genuine Luke, as we now road it, and 
falsified his text, as is charged by the Catholic Fathers, to suit his peculiar dogmas. 
Das Evaiig. Marcions u. s. w. ( 12". Konigsb. 1823 ) SS. 3-8, and 27-30. — On the 
disputed Hebrew text of Matthew, pro and con, consult Hug : Eudeitung in die 
Hchriflen des N. T., 2'. Theil, §8 &,c. (Tubing. 12". 1808) S. 16 ff. He main- 
tains that it was originally written in Greek : § 12 ib. S. 39, — in connection with 
preceding § and pages. 

+ Celsus ( Origen. c. C'elsum. IL c. 27. p. 411 1. i. Op. ed. Delarue, Paris. 1733 ) 
accused the Christians of continually (rpixi icai TerpaxJ) <£oi TroAAaxi) making 
alterations in their Scriptures to meet objections ( av' e^oiev jrpos tous eAey^ous 
appeiaBai.. ) The champion of the Church admits the charge only as applicable 
to the heretics ! 

t Logos however is not Plato's word. That philosopher, in his subtilizations, 
cliose to give to the Divine intellect oc. '■'■Noun" a seemingly material existence 
by transforming It into a creative power, acting with the Deity, yet acting inde- 
pendently, as if it were not a part of the Divine essence, but a divinely consti- 
tuted agent. In this No%i3 lies the primitive form or the mold of all things, and 
through this were all things created. In the same way speak certain writers of 
the 0. T. of the " Sophia" or Heavenly Wiadom ; in fact, speaking in the same 
way by a natural figure of speech. But the Alexandrian theosophists, taking up 
the idea, lent it bj' amplification and exegetical subtlety a further mystification, 
from which gradually developed itself a sort of second or secondary deity, adjunct 
with the Eternal, and co-operating with Him, yet emanating from Him and sub" 

Vol. VT.— 10 



146 NOTES TO 



21. — P. 61. And history be interpolated — ] Our religion — 
ours, for I too claim to be a Christian of the best, professing 
namely that pure and simjile faith which there is absolute evi- 
dence was prevalent in the times of the immediate successors of 
the apostles, which John Milton presumably ( notwithstanding, or 

ordinate to Him. This is the Logos of Philo and the Alexandrians. (') The 
personification, which is seli-evident, has also in Phi'o a correlative and coex- 
planatory phrase. This is the Spirit of God, or the ffoly Ghost of the O. T. ; 
that which brooded over the waters while the world yet lay in embryo, that which 
touched with fire tlie " hallowed lips" of the prophets, and unsealed their eyes to 
the revelation of future events. The early Church-fathers, whether following in 
the same track, or of their own conception (for, I repeat, it is originally, this sub- 
stantive idea, but a perfectly natural one, as its phraseology is, when not envel- 
oped in mystification but left to its naked self, simple and intelligible ), the early 
Fathers adopted the same bold prosopopoeia. Thus the Sophia, which corresponds 
to the Holy Spirit of the received faith, and to the '' filius Dei ab hrereditate " of 
Hermas, occurs in the XVth Homily of the Clementina, and in such manner as 
to make its identity with the Logos lucidly manifest. St. Peter is responding to 
Simon Magus' questions on the unity or plurality of the Godliead. Sim. Kai 
enr^v 6 ©eos' iroirjo-wfiei' k. t. \. And God said : Let n.i make man according 
to our image and semblance. The ' Let us make ' signifies two or more ; but not 
one. And Peter answers : It is one, speaking to /lis Wisdom : ' Let us make 
man.' With this Wisdom [ Sophia ] ffe, the Eternal, ever had delight and sympa- 
thy as with His own spirit. For in truth it is united with God as a soul. Ex- 
tended by the Almighty, like as it were a Iiand, it brings into being and fashions 
all things, etc. (2) But St. John, who was nearer the time of Philo than the 
writer of the Clementina, even were this latter the Eoman Clement himself, 
speaks still more like PhUo, and still more Platonically. " In the beginning was 
the Word [ Logos '\. And the Word, etc." He speaks but figuratively ; and it is 
mere perversion, not to understand him as so speaking. 

Premising thus much, and referring the reader to Neander [A. G. 1^ Abth. 
2" Bdes. S. 990), I will give, from a bolder German ecclesiastical historian, the fol- 
lowing abstract of Philo's speculations : " In many places, Philo describes the 

(1) The Athene of the Greeks, the spontaneous birth of the hrain of Zeus, is nothing more ; and with a 
people the groundwork of whose religion was not the Immutable principle of the Divine unity, such phan- 
tasies as Pljilo'8 might easily lead to polytheism. 

(2) I have been compelled to give a free translation, therefore annex the test. '^ St ao^ta coanep .Setfi 
TTV€Vfi.aTL avTOC a€L iTuV€\aip£V. 'HvwTai. fjt.€V fie '^XV '■<** detii' €<reti'CTa( St an' avrov, tie KtLp 
Sti/xiovpyovca ro ttj-v k. t. X. Ex. Galland. BM. V. PI", t. ii. pp. 747 »q. 



THE NEW CALVAUY. 147 



perhaps in consequence of, his Arianism ) and Isaac Newton avow- 
edly followed, and of which the more liberal Unitarians of our 

Lofjos as an individual being, that, in a peculiar manner emanating from God, has 
it^ own existence. According to this second representation, the Logos is the old- 
est creation of God, not unbcgotten like God, but yet not created as finite beings ; 
he is the son of the Eternal Father, His image, the First JIan, after whose form 
Adam was made. Creator of the world, Mediator between God and men, Advo- 
cate and High-priest of All, Chief of all Angels, Sub-God and Regent of tho 
Universe, whom the Lord has established in his place, since He Himself, because 
of his purity, may not touch the impure, the material. The Logos has as such 
a divine mediator often appeared visible in the primitive liistory of the Jewish 
people. It is he of whom the 1st ch. of Genesis treats as the Creator ; he is the 
Angel that revealed himself to the patriarch Abraham in Haine, and then de- 
stroyed the cities of Sodom iuid Gomorra ; he is the di\'ine form which Moses 
saw in the thornbush ; he is the pillar which guided Israel through the desert ; he is 
the leader of the wanderings of the chosen people, the Angel of the Covenant. And 
as in the olden time he revealed himself with manifold blessings, so will he one 
day visibly operate for his people ; for the prophecies of the Messiah which the 
seers of Israel received in vision relate to him. His names are : Logos or Word, 
High Priest, Man of God, Dominion, Covenant, Name of the Lord, Prophetic 
Israel, Archangel, Paraclete, Second God." Gf rorer : A. K-G. 1 Bd. S. 65 fiE. — 
Believing all this to be quite new to the plurality of my readers, I should will- 
ingly gather yet a little more, premising the important fact, that, as the literary 
activity of Philo ( who was bom about 30 yy. B. C. ) occurs at a time preceding the 
appearance of Jesus, his lore, whatever its resemblance ( which is often icordfor 
xcord ) with the doctrines of the N. T., is not to be ascribed to Cliristian faith {') ; 
but my limits, already overstepped, render this impracticable. For the adop- 
tion of the term Logos for the "imaginary being,'" which, as Gfrbrer says, was 
in fact "a second person in the Godhead," see in the same vol., pp. 66-70. — 
Philo's notions of faith, hope, love, repentance, piety, signally accord, as just 
said, with the sentiments and doctrine of the Apostles. He did not, however, 
believe in the Devil or a Hell, and rejected the Pharisean creed of a bodily 
resurrrection, and maintained the pre-existcnce of the soul. Nor did he confound 

(1) " In an extenflive commentary on the books of Moses, he has laid down a number of very peculiar 
Tiews, which often accord to a word with the doctrines of the N. T. This striltlnB coincidence misled 
lome of th..' oldest Christian Fathers to the conjecture, that Fhilo was a Christian, and had drawn his 
relirious Tirwa from our Church; an assertion whose falsity is incontestably manifest from the sinelo 
circumstance, that Philo's activity as a writer occurs at a time in which Jesus had not yet appeared la 
Jndea.** orrorer, u. s. p. 57. 



148 NOTES TO 



own day, and the so-called Rationalists, are preparing, slowly 
indeed by reason of the obduracy, love of the marvelous, and 
Ijroneness to idolatry and sui^erstition, of the common mind, 
slowly, but I think surely, the perfect restoration — our religion, 
as it now stands, supports its most glaring error upon the svip- 
posed testimony of Josephus {A?it. J. xviii. 3. 3]. Now that 
passage is by its very form and language palpably a counter- 
feit. Hence in the text-edition I have latterly used it is in- 
cluded in brackets. That Whiston himself had secret doubts 
of its genuineness is abundantly manifest from the fact that 
he cites authority after authority, not one of which is of any 
value in the case, to prove that that thorough Jew Josephus 
did write it. ( See his Appendix : Dm. i ; also his second note 
to Chap, xii, Bk. i. of the Antiquities. )* Its origin is due to 
the same unscrupulous spirit that prompted the story in Ter- 
tullian of Pilate's report of the miracles of Jesus to the em- 

tho expected Messiah with tlie Logos, (') his ideas of the latter being too ethereal 
and exalted, and of the former too earthly. "£m< roe see that with such prece- 
dents, others who had feioer dogmatical scruples had but yet a Utile step to take to 
declare the Messiah and the Logos one." lb. 92. 

* The attempt to buttress, not the religion of Christ, — that stands on its own 
merits, which are solid and paramount, — but its claims to a divine origin or rev- 
elation, by frauds that are supposed to be justified by the assumed piety of their 
purpose, has done more to keep up infidelity and to augment contuiually its 
forces, than all the logic of reason or the knowledge of facts, which are confined 
to scholars and accepted by only cultivated intellects. I'et the practice is con- 
tinued, and to its suicidal tendency are added the efforts of pulpit orators, who 
are apt to address their audience as if it was not really Christian, or as if they 
themselves were new preachers of a new doctrine not understood and without 
recognized authority. A clergjonan should never speak as if his creed was to be 
suspected ; in attempting to defend the divineness of Christianity, he in fact 
assaUs it, and keeps before the mind of his hearers the doubts that would other- 
wise have a chance to be forgotten. The French proverb, Qui s'excuse s''acciise, 
is sufficiently familiar. 

(1) This hardly accords with what Is said, above, of the prophecies. 



THE KEW CALVARY H9 



peror Tiberius and the latter' s endeavor thereupon to have him 
classed among the gods of Rome {v. Ncander : 1" B^ S. 134, f. — 
Aufl. 1825 ) ; to that which still disgi-accs some biographies of 
Christ ( that of Wright, for example) by the letter imputed to P. 
Lentulus giving the Emperor a description of the Saviour's per- 
son, — an impudent fiction which might be confuted by the mere 
opinions, conflicting as they are, of ancient Church-fathers ( v. 
Note 1 ), and which is only less absurd than the stoiy of the 
mummery of the napkin and impressed image.* 

I have already shown how this fraudulent practice was appUed 
to promote the dogma of the Trinity, that standing reproach to 
the common sense, and I think also to the piety, of the mass of 
Christians. A simUar trickery was resorted to, to substantiate 
the claim of the Bishop of Rome to universal chui-ch-supremacy. f 

* I beg to refer the reader to a most entertaining and learned article of M. da 
Beausobre on the images not made by hands ( oxf ipo7roir,Toi/s ) but emanating, 
so to say, directly from the divinity : liibl. Genu. t. xviii. p. 8, sqq. He will 
perhaps be at first a little shocked at the tone of mockery assumed by the accom- 
plished critic ; but this will soon pass over, and if the matter he there reads be 
perfectly fresh to him, his surprise will equal his gratification. See partictalarly 
ib. pp. 9, 10, 14, 28, 34. The whole essay, through about 40 of the small pagea 
( 24° ), is occupied with the marvelous image which Christ is said to have im- 
printed of himself on a napkin and sent mth a letter to Abgar, King of Edessa 
( — for the letter, Euseb. 1. 13, Natal. Alex. Skc. 1. Diss. iii. — ), and which, 
preser\'ed in the outer waU of the city, passed into the hands of the Greeks and 
came at last to Rome, where, under the name of the Holy Face, it is, or was then 
( toward the 2d quarter of the 18th Cy. ), preser\-ed in the Church of St. Sylves- 
ter. Sec Baron, ad An. W4, and thereon Pagi. Critica ib. I can add but this 
trait : 400 jT- after Eusebius, Gregory II , writing to Leo Isaiiricus ( Saron. ad 
An. 728), vouched not only for the letter, but for the image, of which Eusebiua, 
with more decency, had said nothing,-" Christum sua manu rcscripsisse, mi^sa 
linteo impresm inuKjine."' ib. p. 16. 

t The assumed original supremacy of the See of Rome rests upon no demon- 
strable foimdation. In the writers of the two first centuries I find not the least 
intimation of it, and so late as the middle of the third the sole testimony in its 
favor is that of a passage in Cyprian which is very generally acknowledged to bo 



150 NOTES TO 



In the Stli volume of Martianay's edition of Jerom, in the 
Preface to the Catalogue of eminent Christian writers, there are 
some examples given of the wilful frauds committed by party- 
zeal or malice in the publication of imi^ortant Mss. 

22.— P. 61. — against Himself—] 

Since in ojypugnance to His own fix' d laws 

would be the verse which should follow, if explication were ad- 
missible in the part. 

an interpolation, which to suppose accidental may be charity but is certainly more 
than justice. In his address to the Council of Carthage, where were present 87 
bishops, whose opinions he himself records, Cyprian declared they were all equal, 
had no right of judgment one over another, and received their appointment from 
Christ alone — to whom alone it belonged to pronounce upon their function, (i) 
On the other hand, in the interpolated passage, in the book on the Unity of the 
Church, he is made to say, in reference to the well-known words. Thou art Peter, 
etc., and again, Feed my sheep, that on Peter alone Christ builds his Church and 
to him alone commits his flock ; and that although, after his resurrection, he con- 
ferred eqiial power on all the apostles, yet he chose one of them to be the point of 
unity : they were all endowed with the same dignity and power as Peter, but the 
primacy was given to him, to demonstrate that the Church of Christ is one and 
one the see or chair. (-) 

This passage which, even were it admitted to be genuine, cannot be reconciled 
with the previous language of Cyprian, and which, could It be so reconciled, is 
rendered of no weight by the simplest comment of good sense upon the text iu 

(11 " Supereat ut de hac ipsa re [de heertticU baptizandia'\ Binguli quid BentiamuB proferamus, neminem 
judicantes, aut a jure communicatioiiis aliquetn, si diverfium Benserit, amovenles. Neque enim ijuistiuam noS' 
$rum ei'iscopum se ease episcoporum constifuit, aut tyrannico terrore ad obsequeildi neceHSitatem tollegos BU09 
adigit, quanio haltcat omnia epiacopus pro iicentia libertatia et poteatatis su<f arbitrium proprium, tamtiue 
judicari ab alio nan poaait quam nee ipse potest aCterum judicare. Sed exspertemus univerpi judicium Dom. 
Nob. J. Ctiristi, qui unua et aolua habet potestatetn et praponendi noa in eccleaia; Bua; gubernatione et de actis 
nostria judieandi." Concil. Cartliag. Op. coll. 697, 8 ed. Baiuzii (Venet. in fol. 1758.) His language however 
Bliowa ttiat the leaven of ambition was already fermenting, and that he was uneasily watching and endeavor- 
ing to repress its rise. 

{2) . ." tamen ut uiiTtatem manifestaret, unitatis ejusdem originem ab uno incipientcm sua antoritate 
dispoBuit. Hoc erant utique et ceteri apostoli quod fuit Petrus, pari cnnsorlio pra^diti pt honoris et pntesta- 
tiB, aed exordium ah unitate proficiscitur, et primatuB Petro datur ut una Christi ecclesia et cathedra una 
moiiBtrclur." Lib. de Vnit. Ecclca. ( Op. ed. cit. p. '1C3.) Not merely this part, but the whole passage upon 
the text from Matthew, was thrown out in the Ist edition of Baluzius, who, citing Latiuiua as saying it waa 
not found tn 7 Vatican Mas., adds, *' Ego viUi 7 et 20 in quibuB pariter dcest ' " 



THE NEW CALVARY 151 



23. — P. G3. Mosch'' act Was a formality — ] BoiTowed, or 
rather continued, from that of the Egyptian priests, his teachers 
or his fellows, who used a similar ceremony, to which of course 
the people of the Exodus had been well accustomed. 

24. — P. 64. For iclwm the sin-goat bleeds not^ and the smolce 
Of incense buni'd tcithin the vail, etc. ] Levit. xvi 

25. — P. 72. Brook\l not the eagle on the House of God — ] The 
golden eagle which Herod had erected over the great gate of the 
Temple, and which certain young men under the instigation of 
Judas and Matthias, teachers and expounders of the law, under- 
took to remove during Herod's illness. Josephus says that Herod, 
who was then about seventy years old, burnt alive this Matthias 
with forty of his associates. Antiq. J. xvii. vi. 

question (i), this piissage, of which I give the most suspicious part In the under- 
note, was rejected altogether by Baluzc, who, as there stated, found it wanting in 
no less than 7 and 20 copies of the Vatican. As it is too largo to have been acci- 
dentally omitted, the iivference is obvious. 

fl) It would be productive of singular conflequences, if a literal interpretation were given to every saying 
of Christ's. " If thine eye offend thee, etc." The allusion to the name of Peter could only have been mado 
by one speaking Greelt, and to those who understood Greek, whereas Jesus undoubtedly discoursed in He- 
brew and to Hebrews, (a) But receiving the account of the Evangelist as literally elacl.what is the evident 
meaning, as presented to one who is not interested in giving it a peculiar sense ? Thou art Peter : I knov) 
Ihy enerpf and ardor, and on thee ehiejl]/ depend for the propagation of my faith, building my invisible church 
upon thy seal and firmnest at a ttmple on a rock whole foundations nothing human can shake. It conveys 
no pre-eminence and implies no concentration. Clirist simply relies upon Peter for the propagation of the 
faith. And it must certainly be admitted, that those who claim to be his direct successors have inherited 
to the full the same spirit. 

(a) We have seen that the N . T. was not known till the middle of the 2d Cy., and even then contained of 
all the evangelists but a portion of what is now recogniied as the Gospel of St. Luke i and further, that it is 
not known that there was ever even on original Hebrew text of Matthew. The Oospel of John, where the 
famous words again occnr, was, it need not be said, written originally in Greek. Add now the pluusiltle and 
partially admitted complaint of Cclsun, that the Christians were perpetually making alterations in their 
gospels, and we shall come near to a just conclusion of this passage, whose play of words is singularly dis- 
cordant with the unalterably solemn and even melancholy language, on all occasions, of the alleged speaker. 

DuPin however, in the notes to his edition of (iptavus ( Lulet. Paris, in fol. 1760 ), p. ve, gives out that 
Christ spoke in Syriac, antl used the phrase Cephas and Crpha .' "Cephas Syriaed est Petra. Dixit ergo 
Chrislus; Tu es Cepha, et super hunc Cepha— quod Gra-c* reddidit Matlheus 6ti itv t« ricipot, etc." Ilia 
author however derives Cephas from <€(>oX7), and says the Saviour called Peter Cephas as being head of the 
Church. 16. I)u Pin considers this "allusio parum solida est." Tiue enough; but it is quite as substantial 
as his own observation. 

See however, as to the capability of the Jews in general to understand Greek, Hug. Einleitung u. s. w.( na 
elsewhere cited ) Th. '2. § 10. SS. 29, ff. Supposing him to have proved his position that the great body of tha 
Hebrew people did understand Greek, it remains to be shown that it would be used in prefereuce on such an 
occasion as that in questiou. 



152 NOTES TO 



2G. — P. 72. Nor hands icoukl break the Sabbath, etc. ] Kai 

enEiSri tout' ety^ei' Ixai'tdc^ iinXtg TrXr/aBeiani Trig Tntfioov^ k. t. ^. Jind Wheil 

he laid this [ the mound ] of svfficient height, the ditch being with 
difficulty filled wp because of the tinvsual dei^th, having brought up 
the machines and e)igines procured from Tyre he [ Pompeius ] 
applied them, and broke the temple's tcalls with the stone-hurlers. 
And was it not a custom icith tis transmitted from our sires to cease 
from work on the seventh day, the mound could not have been com- 
pleted in the face of their [ the defenders' ] opposition. For the 
law* allows us to repel the enemy when they begin the fight and 
come to bloics, but lohen they da anything else does not permit it. 
Ant. Jud. XIV. iv. 2. 

27. — P. 76. — thus themselves Doing, etc. etc.] The text 
might be illustrated by a hundred examples, many of which will 
occur to the reader himself at the bare suggestion ; but as I have 
alluded to Arianism, and as that ' ' heresy " is a sort of neutral 
ground where the antagonisms of Christian deism and tritheism 
meet and seemingly coalesce, or, if it is not irreverent to say so, 
a sort of half-way house between the starting-point of the true 
Church of Christ and that false goal of a devious travel, the 
sophistry of a mongi-el and idolatrous triune worship, let us take 
the instance of Arius. 

He was the founder of a sect which in the 4th Cy. actually 
divided the Christian world, and was in one portion of it for a 

* Not the written law, biit the traditional one ot the Jewish doctors, dating 
after the Maccabeos. ( So Hudson's note ad loc. ] — But written or unwritten, 
its observance sets in the strongest light the absurd bigotry of the Jews, which 
Josephus on the occasion presents to our admiring regard as consummate piety. 
Nor is he to be laughed at ; for the Pharisees of ovir own faith judge and do the 
like, who on fast-days abstain rigidly from meat but indulge freely in liquor, and 
confessing their casual and inconsequential peccadilloes say nothing of habitual 
incontinence. 



THE NEW CALVARY 153 



long time completely paramount. * Ouly fragments of liis wiit- 
ings have escaped the destruction to which the Imperial pohcy 
rather than piety condemned them ;f but his arguments on the 
nature of the Son of God, as they may be gathered from his chief 
antagonist, t are, briefly stated, as follows. Christ being begotten, 
there was a time when he was not, and when, consequently, God 
was not the Father. His existence therefore having a commence- 
ment in a point of time, the Wo?'d was not eternal. Now, if not 
eternal, the Word cordd not be God, and if not God could not 
have been begotten of God ; for that which is of God begotten 
must share His i)roper nature. Hence Christ was 7iot begotten of 
God, but was created, being before all other creations, and the 
only one created of God as the Father. Thus his divinity is not 

* Under an Arian prince, when Athanasius was driven from Alexandria into 
e.xile, "dilapso in fide Apostolorum omni pene raundo," the bishops showed 
sucli pliancy of con.scicnce, that out of 650 scarceli/ 7 were found to whom 
the commands of God xcere dearer than those of the king. Jul. Pelag. ap. 
Augiiiitin., in Operis Imperf. lib. 1". — August. Op. t. x. p. C89, ed. Benedict. 
(Antw. infol. 1700). 

t The Emperor professed a desire not only for the annihilation of his dogma, 
but of his very memory, and commanded instant death to be inflicted on any one 
found concealing a book of the infamous heretic. See his letter in Socrat. Jlist. 
Eccl. I. ix., p. 27 ed. Valesii ( Amstel. in fol. 1700). 

X Athanas. c. Arianos. Orat. i. — Op. { Paris, in fol. 1698. ) t. i. p. 413 ; and 
Epist. ad Episc. ^gypti et Lihym — ib. 2S1 sq. (') In the former work we have 
handed down to us the opening of the chief composition of Arius, Tfialia. It 
would make hun appear to have been pompous and self-satisfi/ed. Like Ulysses, 
he hesitated not to call himself the renowned, 6 TrepixAvTo?, and gives out magni- 
loqunntly, as with the sound of a trumpet, that he is come to preach the wisdom 
taught him by God. It seems to have been a composition partly in prose and 
partly in verse, v. Socrat. H. E. u. s., p. 25 : Sozom. II. E. I. x-xi. ( ej. torn 355.). 

(1) Athanasius was at the time tht* strife commenced Deacon in the head chnrch of Alexandria, and Arins 
a presbyter, pastor of Baulialis. 'I'he latter was by birth a Libyan, and according to Epiphanius already 
advanced in years when the dispute broke out. See, besides the works just cited and Kusebius in the 2(1 
Dk. of the Vilo Contlanl., Athanas. DUpul. ( in Oonc. Nic. ) c. Arium, ( T. ii. pp. 200 stji]. ed. cit. ), where 
Arius is introduced personally. Augualiu has also written against the Ariaus. it. v, and viii, ed. cit. 

7* 



154 NOTES TO 



the g-odhead of birth, but the result of the Omnipotent Paternal 
favor : he is not very God, but made God. And by his individual 
will though always good, yet hy Ids nature as a creature he icas 
capable of evil, for as a creature he shared not the immutable 
nature of the Father. — The augmentation of the dignity of the 
Great Teacher, which began to obtain after the close of the 2d 
Cy. , until at this time it had reached its highest point by equaliza- 
tion of his ascribed divinity with that of the Creator,* Arius 
opposes, not only by his arguments, but by a direct hypothetical 
assertion that the Almighty is himself invisible to the Son. 

A doctrine, which if not in itself rational is yet based on argu- 
ments sustainable by the logic of human reason, was not likely to 
want favorers, especially in that era of Christianity, when the 
dogma of the Triune nature, allowed by its own teachers to be 
incomprehensible, was comparatively recent, nor had yet had 
time to overgrow the simpler faith which had taken root for more 
than two centuries. Accordingly, scarcely was the dogma made 
public, which was in the 17th year of the 4th Cy. , when thou- 
sands acknowledged it as theii- own. From Alexandria, where it 
broke out, the flame spread through all Egypt ; Libya was kin- 
dled ; Asia caught the light of the burning, and from the windows 
of her churches the neighboring parts of Europe received reflected 
the illumination. Numbers of the clergy danced with the multi- 
tude delighted round the blaze, and the hearts of many prelates, 
among whom we have already seen the historian Eusebius,f were 
warmed into new energy by the genial heat of a creed which dis- 
pelled for them the benumbing cold of doubt and loosed the stag- 
nating influences of a compulsatory faith. More than one synod 

* Cf. Sozom. u. s., 1. vi. c. xxii. ( p. 541. ) 

+ This was about the Y. S23 ; but the other Eusebius ( Bishop of Nicomcdia), 
Arius' friend from youth, had earlier pronounced for his opinions in two Epistles, 
and by his position and influence converted the strife into one between the Sees 
of Nioomedia and Alexandria. See, further, the next subnote. 



THE NEW CALVARY 155 



was held in its favor ; and Constantine, who, as a new convert, 
was peculiarly disposed to waver between the two donnas,* might 
have finally pronounced for the new one ;f but at the Council of 
Nicfca which he called together ( June, 325 ), and where Arianism 
was a main question of discussion, it was rejected by an over- 
whelming majority, J and the creed adopted, thence known as the 
Jfictean, which affirms the Son to be of one substance with the 
Father. 

Arianism may be said to have been the primitive faith of all the 
Germans. Ulpian, who first converted the Goths, was himself a 
semi-Arian ; and when in the latter half of the 4th Cy. the Visi- 
goths were received into the Empire by Valens on condition of 
baptism, they adopted naturally the faith of that emperor. From 
them Christian monotheism spread to the other Goths and to the 
Vandals, and in the middle of the 5th Cy. it was adopted by the 
Burgundians. § 

In the East it continued the paramount faith for forty years, 

* Eusebius of Nicomedia, who was subsequently banished, to be afterward re- 
called with Alius, had at this time great iiifluence in the court of Constantine, 
and Eusebius was a decided Arian, notwithstanding his abandonment of Arius. 
Cs. Sozomen. IT. E. ii. 29. — p. 398 ed. Val. cit. Rufinus and Jerom both affirm 
that the Emperor, whose sister Constantia had already become a proselyte, was 
actually won over to the new heresy by the Arian bishop. CJ. GfriJrer — A. K. 
II. i. S. 200. — who refers to Tillemont, vi. 252, .3. 

t Or rather, tlie new-old one ; for Arianism was in fact, as to its tenets, but the 
faith of the Jew-Christians, modified by the endeavor on the part of the founder, 
or, if you please, reviver, to reconcile his own judgment with the habit of incul- 
cated doctrine. The monotheism of Arius was that of a syllogizing bishop rather 
than that of a Christian philosopher. 

X Fifteen to one. There were more than 300 bishops present ( see the letters 
of the Erap. Constantine in Soaat. B. E. I. ix. p. 26 ed. cit. ) ; a number quite 
significant of the nature of the office. The bishop of Rome, not being able to 
attend, sent two priests to represent him. 

§ Michelet, speaking of the period when the Gothic clergy invited the Franks 
into Gaul (Y. 451), says: "Tous les autres Barbares a cette epoque etaient 



156 NOTES TO 



viz. from the T. 340 to 380, when Theodosius, not without a show 
of military force, raising to the primacy of Constantinople Gregoiy 
Nazianzen, put it completely down, employing against its profes- 
sors, whom he styled, by a strangely chosen designation, mad- 
men, * as odious persecution ( through fifteen severe edicts ) as the 
See of Rome at a later day, but in the same faith, practised 
against aU indeiiendence of religious thought. 

28. — 77. A man, As tliou art. ] I have already said sufRcicnt 
on this theme, to obviate the necessity of illustration here. But 
it may be permitted me to give in a few words the sum of pre- 
vious explanation, viz. , that the simple humanity of Jesus was 
not only recognized by all his immediate disciples, but, notwith- 
standing the mysticism of St. Paul, was the prevalent belief of 
the Church for perhaps two hundred years, while until the third 
century Christianity had not so far lost itself as to assign to "the 
Son of God " the creative and eternal omnipotence of the Father 
or to give him consubstantiality with the Divine person. Even 
so late as the latter half of the 4th Cy., the Greeks and Latins 
disputed hourly upon the meaning of ovma and v-Koaraaii.^ 

29.— P. 78. — the foretold Messias.} See Note 31. 
30. — P. 79. — when in dream, etc. ] Isaiah, vi. 4. 

Arlens. Tons appartenaient h une race, k une nationalite distincte. Les Francs 
Beuls, population mixte, semblaient etre restes flottans siir la frontiere, prCts a 
touto irloe, k toute influence, a toute religion. Eux seuls regurcnt le Christianisme 
par realise latine." Hist, de France : t. i. p. 194. 

* "We authorize the follovvers of this doctrine [of the Trinity '\ to assume the 
title of Catholic Christians ; and as ice jmlcje, that all others are extravagant 
madmen, we brand them with the infamous name of Heretics. Etc.''' Cod. Theo- 
dos. 1. xvi. — cited by Gibbon : Decl. and- Fall. c. xxvii. 

t In the received sense, the Trinity is one in oucria ( beinrf, essence, essential 
nature), biit three in u7TO(7Ta<ris {substance, personality). 



THE NEW CALVARY 157 



31. — p. 79. — npplif.<> to times The enr a j)tufd words make 
imminent, not remote.] This is easily demonstrated. In the first 
verse of Chapter vii. of Isaiah, we are told that while Ahaz was 
ruling over Judah ( c. 742 A. C. ), the king of Israel joined with 
the kifig of Syria, to attack Jerusalem. AVhereupon Ahaz was 
sorely shaken {v. 2). So Isaiah with his son went to meet him 
(3), to encourage him and bid him not care for the two tails of 
tlvose smoking firebrands (4), that is, as he explains it, for the 
wrath or evil designs of the Syrians and the Ephraimites, who 
had it in heart to subdue Judea and to establish as king thereof 
the son of Tabeal (5, 6). This, the seer teUs him, shall in no 
wise come to pass, for in threescore and five years the Ephraim- 
ites, whose capital was Samaria, whereof the son of Remaliah 
was king, should cease to exist (7, 8, 9). Then Ahaz sho\^Tng 
himself incredulous, Isaiah proceeds to tell him to ask a sign from 
Heaven ( 10, 11 ), which when the King declines to do, unwilling 
to " tempt the Lord," ( 12, ) Isaiah reproves him ( 13 ), and i^ro- 
ceeds : 

" 14. Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Be- 
hold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a sou, and shall call his 
name Immanuel [ Ood with us], 

" 15. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to re- 
fuse the evil and choose the good. 

" 16. For before the child sliall know to refuse the evil and choose 
tlie good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her 
[the] kings.'''' 

Of what kings ? E\adently, the combined hostile kings. Before 
the child shall, etc. Not before he shall be born. Therefore the 
prediction or promise is for the time present. And in no other 
way can the words have any sense. Castellio, in his approved 
version, says: " desolabitur terra, cujus ob duos reges tu es anxi- 
us" — the land sJiall be made desolate for which, because of the 



158 NOTES TO 



two kings, tliou art in tl•o^tble, — which corresponds moreover with 
the subsequent forewarning in the chapter.* 

The Septuagint for the same passage reads : Kai KaT(i\ti<p6r]<ytT,n 

h yrij I'lV a-v ^ojSj, ano npnaconov Tiof fvo (iaaiKcdiv — and the land IcldcTl 

thou fearest sJiall be freed of the presence of the two kings. 

Thus it will be seen that the prophecy, so to caU it, applies 
positively to the defeat of the kings of Israel and Syria and to the 
destruction of Samaria, or of Judea, or of both Samaria and 
Judea. 

Now for the wondrous child. He is to eat butter and honey, 
that he may knozc, &c. says the English : CasteUio — " Qui butyro 
melleque vescetur, discendo reprobare malum, &c." — Who shall 
feed on butter and honey, in learning (or by learning, — which 
would give the previous clause a pecuUar figurative sense ) to reject 

evil &C. : the Greek: ^ovrvpnv <mi pcKi (pnyerai jrpivr] yvtoi/ai, k, t, X. — 

Butter and honey he shall eat before knowing, &c. But, whatever 
the form of the translation, if we are to take the essential part of 
the passage literally, — that is, "A virgin shall conceive and bear, 
&c.," then, also literally, the child was to be fed on butter and 
honey, f But let us allow a large latitude, and make the 14th 

* The chapter however is characteristically confused, and it is dlfRcult to teU 
which land it is that is to be desolated, although as the prophet's object was to 
encourage Ahaz, it is probable that Samaria, which is to say the kingdom of Israel, 
is meant. So in the English version we have "the land that thou abhorrest," and 
in the Greek " which thou fearest," whUe the intervening promise of abundance, 
if it is such and not a threat of devastation, ( v. 21, or 22 Eng. ), must apply to 
Judea. Castellio's version, according to the true Latin construction, can refer 
only to the latter. 

1 1 find that Biblical commentators do take the phrase literally, and interpret it 
that the divine child was to be brought up like other children in the East, who are 
fed on butter and honey [?] ; and this to give him the knowledge of good and 
evil. I should have thought that that had come to him more fully by his super- 
human nature than by any pai-ticipation in the sustenance of those who derive it 
from original sin. See subnote * on the next page. 



THE KEW CALVAKY 159 



verse alone to have a literal signification and the ISth a fignrative 
one, — which certainly is accommodating the expounders of the 
text more than its author, — the sense of eating butter and honey 
is either he shall be nourished in the lap of abundance, or, if the 
22d verse indicates a dearth of ordinary food through the ravages 
of war, he shall suffer great privation. * Was either accident the 
case with the chUd of Bethlehem, who, bom in humble circum- 
stances but hot in destitution, finished his unvaried life before the 
last calamity of his country ? f 

Finally, the Seventy have in the 14th verse : If!«u /; irapOevoi iv 

yaarpi X/jtpsrai, Kai Tc^crai diov, Kat xuXeo-cij to ovof^ia avTov Efifiat/vc)t, 

BeJidd the virgin shall conceive, and shall bear a son, and tlwv. 
[ Ahaz sc. ] shall call his na?ne Emmanuel. And Castellio : ' ' Ecce 
puella prajgnans filium jiariet, quem nomine vocabit Emmanue- 
lem." Beliold a pregnant girl shall hnng foi'th a son, wJiom she 
shall call &c. For I need not suggest to the instructed reader 
the "laborantes utero puellas" (Hor. Carm. III. xxii. ), to con- 

* That is, learn by the wo of Ahaz' bad reign to prefer good to evU. 

+ Cliap. xi. is still more prophetic of a Messiah, and vv. 3-5 might well answer 
for a character of Jesus. Are we then to interpret it literally ? Has the wolf 
indeed dwelt with the lamb, and the leopard lain do^vn with the kid ? Doth the 
lion eat sti-aw like the ox? or have all the dispersed of Judah [observe, not o£ 
Israel also ] been gathered together from the four comers of the earth ? In Chap, 
ix. 6-7, taking the titles of the promised child, whose shoulder was to bear tho 
government, as applicable to Jesus, is it true that of the increase of his govern- 
ment and peace there is no end, on the throne of David and upon his kingdom ? 
or previouslj-, ii. 4, though Jesus, through the Gospel, has indeed rebuked many 
people, has he beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning- 
hooks ? Doth nation no longer lift up the sword against nation, and is war indeed 
then learned no more ? Falsus in uno, faUus in omtiibtts. 1 do not admit that 
as a general principle ; but in the component parts of a single passage, where tho 
theme and the application are one, it must be allowed to hold good ; and it breaks 
down at once the entire fabric of prophecy, or rather bursts the froth-made bubble 
whose contents are mere air. 



IGO NOTES TO 



vince him of what is otherwise known, that "puella" does not 
necessarily mean a maid. * 

Whichever of the three versions is the truest I cannot pronounce, 
having no knowledge of Hebrew ; but, taking any one of them, 
or all of them, nay, throwing aside what is inseparable in the text, 
the l(jth verse, which points the prophecy inflexibly to the times 
of Ahaz, what have we ? An unt^^tored poet's ill-digested fancy, 
an Eastern enthusiast's bewildered and bewildering daydream, the 
swollen language, often noble, sometimes grand, but always more 
or less exaggerated, of a mind whose ill-regulated imagination had 
become by the practice of its owner, whose pretensions were wel- 
comed and overrated by a barbarous people, totally lawless of all 
disciiDhne, if not positively deranged. The thing is not new, nor 
will it probably be ever old. Not to speak of oriental fancies, 
there is the Pollio of Virgil ( Ed. iv ),f which men have had the 

* Besides, in Isaiah we have "virgin" used frequently without particular mean- 
ing. Thus, xxiii. 12, — " Virgin, daughter of Sidon ; " xxxvii. 22, — " The virgin, 
the daughter of Zion : " xlvii. 1, — "0 virgin, daughter of Babylon ; " for Sidon, 
Zion, and Babylon, simply. Compare Jeremiah xxxi. 4, 13, 21. 

It is to be observed too, that he says nothing of the mode of conception. It is 
not to be by any divine interposition, or by intervention and agency of the Spirit. 
It is merely to be a generation out of the ordinary course ( if virgin is indeed used 
in the strict sense ), according to the ignorance in such matters of the not very 
rational prophet ; an ignorance shared by many men even in greatly later ages, 
who supposed that conception might take place without imiiregnation. What for 
example can be more absurd than for a writer on midwifery and its cognate sub- 
jects to doubt if a woman might not by a miracle have had 3fi5 children at a birth ? 
Yet that seemingly did Francis Maurioeau, one of the most renownied, if not the 
most renowned obstetrician of the last decade of the 17th and the first of the 18th 
Cy. The amusing stoi-y may be found in the Vision of Rubeta, Cto. II. 59, 60, 
note. See too ( if it may be allowed me to refer thus to my own book ) ib. 87-89 
and notes. 

+ Cf., e. g., "lUe defim vitam accipiet, etc." 15 — 30; wherein, by the by, 26 
and 27, " At simul heroum, etc." may be likened to the 16th verse above, " For 
before the child, &c." : then 40—52. All of which it is the height of folly, or 



THE NEW CALVARY 161 



rashness to assert, or the fatiiity to believe, was suggested by the 
Sibyl's copy from the Jewish seers. * And Pope has gone so far 
as to t\nst the Virgo Astrcea into the Virgo Deipara : 

" Rapt into future times, tlic bard begun : 
A Virgin shall conncive, a Virgin bear a son ! " 

superstitious blindness, not to see is but the result of a poet's fancy seeking 
images to fill up the picture of a returning golden age. Without a golden age, and 
witliout the rliapsodies of a single Jewish prophet, any fanciful mind would with 
a similar object take a similar course, and find it an easy one for rapid and bold 
running. 

* See the Prolegomena to the Orac. Sihyllina, p. Ixxbc sq. Galland. V. PP. I. 
ed. 1705, where, besides a sophistical defence or apology of the use made of the 
pretended oracles by the ancient fathers, as Justin Mai-t., Atheuas., Tlieoph. 
Antioch., Clem. Alex., Lactant., et al., the editor adduces the 4th Eclogue 
as a general prediction, after the ancient Sibyl, of the birth of Christ and the re- 
sults ( never yet realized ) thence to flow to a regenerated world. Previously 
( Ixxvii ), it is not attempted to deny that the author was a judaizing Christian. 
Indeed this would be difficult ; for the probability is obvious in the very fir.st book 
of the Oracula, — the poet giving us a rythmical summary of the chief points 
of the Mosaic history, u'ith the names of the patriarchs from Adam down. 
But to suppose, as is done, that the author incorporated many things from the 
old heathen oracles into his collection, is assuming a very great deal. Nothing 
is known with certainty as to their composition, which is in Greek heroic verse, 
except perhaps that they had their origin in Alexandria. Their authenticity was 
easily suspected by several of the Church-fathers. But the Christians generally 
putting faith in them, and, whether putting faith in them or not, often citing 
tliem, as above intimated, were, by heathens as credulous as themselves, derided 
as Sibyllists. In modern collections they are arranged in eight books, and may 
be found in GaUandius ut «., with the Latin hexameter version of Castalio. Gro- 
tius regarded even the ancient ones mentioned in Roman history as the composi- 
tions of Jews. See, in Ori(/. c. CeUum lib. v., a note on this subject, p. 025 t. i. 
Op. ed. Delarue s. cit. 

One thing is worth noticing in this place as corroljorative of what I have said 
as to the Ebionitish or monotheistic faith of the 2d Cy. In Lib. i. 5, we have ; 

'Os ixovo<: ecTTi fleos KTi(7Tr)s, aicpaTijTos virapxiav 
and the date assigned to the rhapsody is c. An. 130. 



162 NOTES TO 

This is finer than Isaiah ; but it is quite as extravagant, and is a 
scarcely justifiable misrepresentation of one who was greater than 
either Pope or Isaiah. * 

To explain the origin of the idea of an immaculate conception 
would carry me too far, who already have expended precious time 
on the inanities of a theme, 

Caught from the vaporiiigs of a prophet's brain 
And poet's myth, the impossible monstrous form 
Of Asian fiction, and the insane idea 
Of minds aspiring to be gi-eat in phrase 
By superclimbing naturo. 

It is sufficient to refer the reader for comparison to the well- 
known phrase of David as to ordinary procreation. "Behold, I 
was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me : " 
{Equidem in mtio genittts sum, ct in feccato me concepit mea 
mater. Cast.) Ps. li. 5. 

82.— P. 80. Behold, To obey etc.] \ Samuel xx. 22. 

33. — P. 80. Thus Jehovah saith, etc.] See IsaiaJii. 11, 13, 
14. — Wilkinson {Anc. Bgi/ps. v. 288, note) has compared 

* Quere. Does not the child, with the prophet, mean the good king Hezekiah, 
son of Ahaz ? and may not the term virgin, or girl, be used to intimate both the 
mother's youth and her first -paxtavitian,— virgin, that is, when brought to 
Ahaz ? The name Imnianuel is merely indicative of the felicity to come by the 
providence of God, to whom the child would be acceptable. — It is not unlikely 
that these predictions were written after the event and ascribed to Isaiah, or 
altered so as to suit the event. But in either case it is beyond any reasonable 
doubt that they were intended for some future king of Judah, of the line of 
David. Thus the Gospel, or its interpolators, have resorted after the manner of 
the O. T. to the trick of a genealogy, to establish a descent wliich they deemed 
necessary to the claim of the Messiah. 



THE NEW CALVARY 163 



the new-moon festivals and solemn assemblies of the Egyptians 
with those bearing a similar name with the Hebrews, as seen 
in the passage of Isaiah referred to. Undoubtedly these last had 
their origin in the former, or rather were but a continuation of 
the customary celebrations. And there are few observances, na- 
tional antii^athies, superstitious prejudices, or even pious pre- 
cepts, from the extravagant abhorrence of swine to the whole- 
some reverence of parents, that might not be traced more or less 
directly to the same ancestral source. In fact, it is high time 
that the 8000 years' fiction of the Jews' originating a new reli- 
gion, or of receiving it primordiaUy from Heaven, should be ex- 
ploded. They revived a dead one, and freed it of much of the 
scurf of its grave ; and that is praise enough. 

34. — P. 89. And vianaging to climb the southern wall — ] To 

it Tcraprov avrov itercoiroVj to wpo; jieatfi^piav^ k. t. A. But thC fourth 

front thereof [ of the Temple], that faced the south^ had not only 
gates in its middle spaces^ but upon it the royal triple portico, which 
extended lengthwise from the eastern valley to the western ; for far- 
ther it could not possibly go. And the icoi'k icas of those most icorthy 
of mention under the sun; for wliile the wall tluit fortified the 
valley was itself of so great height, that it did not suffer one to 
see doion into the depth who from above should lean over to look to 
the bottom, it had upon it the exceeding height of the portico, so that 
if, taking both together, one should frmn the top of the roof of the 
portico endeavor to eiplore the depth, his head icoidd swim, Ids dark- 
ening virion not being able to reach to the unfathomable bottom. 
Antiq. Jud. xv. xi. 5. The reader will know how to make 
allowance for the habitual exaggeration of the describer. 

35. ~P. 108. My Ood! my God ! JIoxci long wilt Thou forsake 
me?} '■'■Eli, di, lama sabactJiani? That is, 'My God, my 
God, why hast thou forsaken me ? ' Or, ' how long a time 



164 NOTES TO THE NEW CALVARY 



hast thou forsaken me!' as the words may be rendered." 
Wright's Life of Chnst, (Lond. in fol. 1782), p. 269. 

I have therefore made an error of memory, in supposing 
that the grandly pathetic words might be interpreted as in the 
text. But it is inconsequential; the spirit, almost the very 
sense, are the same. And in either form of words, that spirit, 
or that sense ( including of course the impassioned cry to God), 
may of itself be considered decisive of the simple humanity of 
the sufferer. * 

* And even if he did not utter them ( for it is noteworthy that neither Luke nor 
John has any such expression, — and it is too remarkable to have been forgotten or 
overloolved ), they may be taken as additional Gospel evidence of the fact, that 
the heathenish belief of the divinity of Christ was not known to the Apostles. Cf. 
Lnke xxiv. 19. 



List of Mr. Osbom's Plays 

Comprised in the present seven volumes of the Scries. 

[ The names in Italics are of those alreadi/ published. ] 

Volume I. 
Calmry : Virginia: Bianca Capcllo ( wth Historical Appendices). 
Tragedies. 

Volume II. 
Ugo da Este: Vberto: The Cidof Seville (with Critical Analyses 
of the Edrella of Lope and Sancho Ortiz of Tri^ieros ) : The Last 
Mandevilk : The IlcarVs Sacrifice : The Monk : Matilda of Den- 
mark. Tragedies. 

Volume III. 
Melcagros : Deianeira : Palamedes : CEnone : Pyrrhus, Son of 
Achilles. Tragedies. 

Volume IV. 
The Silver Head: The Double Deceit: ''The Moiitanini: The 
School for Critics. Comedies. 

Volume V. 
7%e Magnctiser : The Prodigal : Ilis Uncle's Heir : The Dead 
Alive . Comedies in Prose. 

Volume VI. 
The Neto Calvary : Mariamne : Esther : Saul : Samson : Jcph- 
thah. Tragedies. 

Volume VII. 
The Cavalier: The Altar of Duty: Henry III. of France : Henry 
IV. of France : Joanna of Naples. Tragedies. 



Now ready, and to be had separately, Vols. I. IT. and IV. 
For sale by The American News Company, 

117, 119, 121 Nassau-street. 



"'4^; 



